


Each Other's Back

by OughtaKnowBetter



Category: NCIS, Numb3rs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-20
Updated: 2010-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 61,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OughtaKnowBetter/pseuds/OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a missing code, and a missing mathematician, and a missing agent. Can the NCIS and FBI find them before it's too late? Crossover between NCIS and Numb3rs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Each Other's Back

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place before 'Frenemies', where Charlie and Penfield are rather less cordial toward each other…

"That, McGee," Tony DiNozzo announced to the bull pen, "is the very pinnacle of pitiful. It doesn't get much lower than that. A disgrace to single men across this great nation of ours. I can't believe you're actually going to something like that, on a Friday night, no less."

It had been a long week, a week filled with stake-outs that called for caffeine-laden nights and a finale that included a knife fight that had left Leroy Jethro Gibbs one-handedly pecking at the keyboard to finish his report. Director Vance had offered to hijack a clerical worker from the pool to take dictation; Gibbs had declined hurriedly.

It wasn't that Gibbs didn't play well with others…well, yes, it was, McGee reflected. Gibbs barely tolerated his team let alone clerical workers, substitute NCIS agents, and G-men from any other branch of the government. About the only people he could get along with were fellow Marines and his boat, and the boat didn't talk. Maybe it did, but McGee couldn't hear what it said…

Not so DiNozzo. McGee's fellow agent could talk to anyone and everyone. Whether he said something intelligible was another story, but the senior NCIS agent could talk someone's ear off until they confessed. The man was everything that Timothy McGee had grown up envying and despising: suave and handsome, physically adept, with a gift at charming the opposite sex.

DiNozzo knew it, and knew that McGee was the exact opposite. Women? McGee stuttered. A jock? McGee lived in fear that someone would decide that he needed to retake the physical fitness qualifying tests over again, only this time McGee wasn't about to say that he would pass. McGee could dash through cyberspace with the best of them, but put his feet to the track with a stopwatch and things came to a screeching halt. There was a reason that McGee was a novelist: the four minute mile was a great deal easier to achieve if it was done with a surfeit of verbiage.

And now this. McGee summoned his best riposte: "Yes, Tony, that is exactly what I intend to do. It happens to be on a Friday night, and I intend to go as soon as I finish here."

Ziva chimed in, coming to his rescue. "I think it's admirable of McGee to attend this mathematics lecture, Tony. He is improving his mind. You? Do you ever improve your mind, Tony?"

It would have sounded better to McGee if he thought that the Mossad officer really meant it. No, the reason that Ziva had leaped to McGee's defense was more personal for the woman: it was a chance to snipe at DiNozzo. Still, McGee appreciated the effort. "Thank you, Ziva."

"You're welcome, McGee." She turned her gaze upon him. "You are taking a woman to this event, McGee? Perhaps meeting her there?"

"Of course," McGee lied stoutly.

"Oh, ho!" DiNozzo laughed, smelling blood and going after it with shark-like gusto. "The geek version of a date, McGee?"

"She happens to be a very attractive young lady," McGee told his fellow NCIS agents, making it up on the spot. He was a novelist, wasn't he? Creativity was the hallmark of the profession. He should make it sound good while he was at it. If he was careful, he could turn this fictional female into an all-purpose get-out-DiNozzo's-jokes free card. "She recently finished her master's at MIT." There. That should shut DiNozzo up.

Not yet. DiNozzo guffawed. "I suppose you met her online, Probie?"

 _Hand it off._ "As a matter of fact, I did," McGee admitted, trying to make it sound plausible and something that they might believe. "Tony, my own master's from MIT is in computer science. Can you think of a better way to meet a woman with matching interests?" _There. Take that._

DiNozzo did, and handed it back with icing on the side. "That is the saddest thing I've ever heard, McGee. Don't you know that you've just made a date with a vice cop? It's probably a fifty year old guy with bad breath."

"In which case, I'll discover that at this math lecture," McGee said firmly, wonderfully pleased that the date was fictitious only. With McGee's luck, it would have indeed turned out to be a grizzled vice cop with a grungy beard and cauliflower ears from too much boxing practice. Wouldn't that have been a wonderful thing to explain to not only DiNozzo, but Gibbs as well? _Gee, boss, she—or he—sounded so good online._ "I'll let you know how it goes, Tony."

"You do that, McPitiful," DiNozzo told him, "but do it on Monday." He preened. "I have a date. A _real_ date," he clarified. "Dinner. Movies; they have a series of black and white Bogart flicks playing at the Sherman. With a woman who _doesn't_ wear a lab coat, especially cleaned for the occasion."

"Mathematicians don't wear lab coats, Tony."

"Details." DiNozzo waved that objection away. "The only numbers I'll be working with are one and two. Three is definitely too much for me."

"You can say that again," Ziva sniggered. "Advanced concepts in arithmetic!"

"Ha, ha," DiNozzo told her, well aware that he had offered the straight line. "I—"

He broke off, noting Gibbs's hand with the pristine white dressing rising in the air, the other engaged in holding the phone to his ear. The team went on alert, and all three—DiNozzo, Ziva, and McGee—strained to listen in.

"You need us to work the scene—?" Groans from the peanut gallery. It had been a _long_ week, and they were looking to go home.

"Interesting—" _That_ got their attention.

"The media is a flash drive. Got it." A flicker of a question toward McGee from their boss: _what the hell was a flash drive?_ McGee held up a small data stick of his own, indicating that this was what Gibbs's unseen caller was talking about. Gibbs nodded his head in understanding, not missing a beat on his call. "I'll have my people wearing their pagers," he told his caller, apparently unaware that NCIS hadn't used pagers in nearly ten years, that cell phones performed the same actions with the added capability of speech.

The caller was clearly as familiar with Gibbs as his team, for the caller let the line slide by without so much as a comment, preferring instead to get to his or her own weekend pursuits. The call ended, with Gibbs hanging up the phone to glower at his team. McGee cynically wondered if those pursuits from the caller included additional work on the case that had just been handed over to the NCIS team or if the word 'dump' featured prominently in the headlines. McGee started to estimate how much time he could afford to spend in the office tonight before admitting that attending the math lecture wasn't going to happen. He sighed.

A small smile played over Gibbs's lips, suggesting that his boss had read the cyber-whiz's mind. "Keep your cells handy," he instructed his team, ignoring his own previous comment about pagers.

"Boss?" DiNozzo did the talking for them all.

"It's not ours, yet," Gibbs reassured them. "NSA just misplaced a message, had it taken off of a dead body that they were fond of."

"NSA, you said," DiNozzo said, relieved. "Not any of ours." Meaning that it wasn't an NCIS case.

"No, but the message was important enough that their boss called our boss, and a few more bosses including the FBI, CIA, and the Secretary of State."

"That is indeed important," Ziva observed. "What did the message say?"

"Classified, Ziva," Gibbs told her. "Sounds like a message that even the writer wasn't allowed to know what he was writing about." Gibbs leaned back in his chair. "Not our problem. Not at the moment," he added. "The FBI is handling the murder end of it. Everyone's hoping that the dead body will lead them to recovery of the code, and the FBI is in the best position to investigate."

"But…?"

"It's a big country," Gibbs said cryptically. "When they pinpoint it, they'll want to scramble and scramble fast. Anyone near the scrambling point is going to get called, no matter what they're in the middle of, DiNozzo," he added pointedly. "Even a Bogart flick." Leaving out what else DiNozzo could be in the middle of.

DiNozzo had the grace to redden. "Right, boss." He turned to McGee. "Even in the middle of adding two plus two, McGee."

McGee let the senior agent have his moment. "Right, Tony."

***

No matter what it looked like, it wasn't fear of flying.

No, Don Eppes, Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had no fear of flying. The nervous flicker of the fingers, playing at the seat belt wrapped loosely around his middle, had nothing to do with the fact that they were some thirty thousand feet in the air with only a thin sheet of metal keeping him from falling.

He shouldn't be nervous, he told himself, casting an envious glance at the passenger beside him. His _brother_ wasn't nervous, and he was about to do the same thing.

He took a moment to observe his brother, Professor Charles Eppes, sitting in the airline seat beside him, cool as a cucumber and twice as bored. Charlie had his eyes closed, apparently finding sleep a better alternative to whiling away the five hours that it took the jet to cart them from Los Angeles to D.C. His kid brother was in one of his 'short' phases, with the dark curls not quite long enough to hide his forehead. He was dressed comfortably, feet encased in cross-trainers, the perfect rendition of today's professional: a mixture of comfort and professionalism. When had jeans become the new business uniform? Don himself had a sports coat tucked away in the overhead compartment, harking back to when the dark suit was the mandatory dress code. Skirts weren't optional, they had been forbidden, as had women back in the day…

Don could just bet that they hadn't had training classes like this, either. Not when J. Edgar was running things, a few decades ago. Don didn't mind training classes—liked them, in fact. There was one big problem, however, with this one: Don was the scheduled speaker.

And he _hated_ speaking in public.

Off the cuff remarks to the press: no problem. Talking to his team: no problem. Talking to a crowd of over two hundred well-trained and knowledgeable FBI agents, all waiting for him to make a mistake or stutter or trip over his own shoes: _big_ problem.

He could always ask Charlie how he did it, how he always spoke so knowledgeably on the spur of the moment to people so powerful that they could change the world with a single snap of their fingers. Unfortunately, he knew the answer that he'd get because he'd already asked Charlie that same question a couple of years ago: 'just know your stuff', was Charlie's response.

That was not the answer that Don needed. Don _knew_ his stuff, knew it backwards and forwards and could even recite it sideways, but it wasn't helping. The butterflies in his gut were growing teeth and sitting still was only possible because the seatbelt limited his movement.

"Just pretend like you're talking to David and Colby."

"Huh?"

"They're going to be right there in the audience," Charlie pointed out. "That's what you were thinking about, right? I could see it in your face."

"I thought you were sleeping."

"I was. You were thinking too loudly."

"I was _thinking_ too loudly?" Keep this up, and Don was going to regret getting a seat next to Charlie. This was supposed to be a chance for a little bit of brother bonding. Fat lot of bonding going on with Charlie sleeping. And now this: "Chuck, I was not thinking too loudly. In case you hadn't noticed, thinking is a silent process."

"It was on your face," Charlie told him.

"Charlie, I've got a great poker face. My poker face can beat your card counting any day."

"Yeah, but you're not nervous when you play poker," Charlie said. "You blink when you're nervous."

"I am not nervous."

"Yes, you are." Charlie settled himself into the moderately wide expanse of the first class seat, both well aware that Professor Eppes's frequent flyer miles had enabled him to bump up Don's own business class accommodations for the trip. "Don, you face down criminals with guns and you come out grinning and trying to make Dad and me feel better about it. You used to look at fast balls coming at you at ninety miles per hour without blinking, and knock 'em out of the ballpark. There's only one thing that can make you jumpy, and it's—"

"Public speaking," Don finished for him, shaking his head. "And here I thought I was doing a good job of covering up."

"You were. It's just that you blink really fast—"

"I'll have to remember that," Don interrupted. "You got any more 'useful' hints for me?"

"Just know your material—"

"I already got that," Don interrupted a second time. "I know my material. I've got my speech written out."

"Then there should be no problem." Charlie leaned back, satisfied. "You've got all bases covered."

"So why am I still nervous?"

"Think of it as adrenalin, upping your reflexes," Charlie advised. "It's helping you to function better. Kind of like better able to jump out of the path of a speeding bullet."

Don gave him a sour look. "Thanks, Charlie. I needed that." He altered the subject. "How about you? I thought you were going to work on your own speech on the flight. We're almost to D.C."

"Oh. That." Charlie played with a small smirk.

"Yeah. That. You slept the whole way. You going to make up the speech on the spot?" Don wouldn't put it past his kid brother. Talking to the most influential mathematicians in the world, all flying into D.C. just for this conference, and Charlie hadn't prepared a damn thing.

"All done."

"Really? When?"

Bigger smirk. "Before we ever took off. I had the outline done two weeks ago, and filled in the blanks last Monday."

"Then why did you tell me you still had stuff to do?" Don asked, aggrieved.

Charlie shrugged. "Didn't want to make you feel bad."

Don glared at him. "This is gonna be a long weekend, Chuck."

The airliner loudspeaker clicked on. "All passengers, return to your seats and buckle your seatbelts. We'll be landing in Washington, D.C. in eight minutes. The weather is clear, sixty three degrees, and traffic is, as usual, busy."

***

Special Agent Timothy McGee inhaled deeply, looking around the lobby of the third Convention Center arena, feeling a sense of peace settle into his soul. All around were people bearing the stamp of _intelligentsia,_ people who routinely turned down offers to join Mensa because other, more interesting pursuits took up their time. He couldn't honestly call the place crowded, but there were still enough scholars present to satisfy his sense of being among kindred souls, people who were here for the opportunity to listen to one of the premier mathematicians of the century discuss his research. There were a couple of other lectures that he'd like to get into—that one by Professor Marshall Penfield on Discrimination Between Partial Populations sounded as though it might have uses on the job—but McGee was really hoping to get a front row seat to the lecture on the Eppes Convergence. It was why he was early. It was why he had fretted about getting out of the office without getting caught by an incipient case.

No matter; he was here. He set his worries about his job to one side, concentrating on the sense of academic awe that he'd enjoyed during his years at MIT. Applied science in the form of tracking down suspects in the Name of Good and Righteousness was all very rewarding, but tonight McGee was after another sort of satisfaction.

He conscientiously set his cell on vibrate, noting the lack of messages lurking on the screen. Mixed blessing: no calls summoning him back to the job, but no calls from any eligible females, either—not that he expected any. McGee sighed. He didn't need a different chick on each arm every night of the week like Tony apparently went after, but it would be nice to have someone semi-permanently in his life. Abby might fit the bill, if only she'd look at him with something other than a 'colleague in the pursuit of Knowledge'. He sighed again; as much as he might like to, breaking the rules with respect to dating fellow office workers wasn't in his nature. No, if he wanted to get serious about Abby, he'd have to put in for a transfer and then he'd have to answer all sorts of embarrassing questions, and then what if Abby said no? Better to stay where he was and to gape at her from afar. Sort of. Gape at her from across the room. Sit next to her in front of a computer. Whatever.

Maybe he could find someone here at this convention? Always a possibility. He scanned the crowd: a fifty-fifty mix of genders, indicating the growing number of women entering the math and computer fields. This could work in his favor.

McGee made his way toward the main stage, intending to score a seat close to the front. There was no reason to do so—Professor Eppes's image would be transmitted onto the huge screen behind him on the stage. McGee would be able to count every pore in the man's face, if he so chose, from any seat in the house—but there was just something _special_ about sitting close to the stage, as though he'd scored some front row seats to a ball game.

He paused by a singleton chair, next to a young woman with a notebook. DiNozzo, he thought, wouldn't have given her a second look: unremarkable dark brown hair that needed some scented hair product to tame it into submission, eyes that were fixed on her notes for a lecture that hadn't even started. There was one thing that McGee noted that he was certain that DiNozzo automatically looked for: no ring. Nothing to indicate that this woman was taken by anything more than a fancy for some higher learning.

McGee cleared his throat. "Excuse me. Is this seat taken?" he asked.

 _Nice smile._ "No."

McGee himself rendered a return smile, and seated himself next to the girl. "Is this the first time you've listened to Dr. Eppes?"

"Yes. You?"

"Yes. I'm looking forward to hearing his views on some of the rebuttals to his work on Convergence Theory."

"So am I," she confided. "Perhaps he'll even answer a few queries on his ongoing research. I understand he's currently working on cognitive emergence."

"Should be interesting." McGee settled himself comfortably into his seat. It was going to be an enjoyable next few hours, dividing his attention between the lecture material and his next-seat companion.

***

"You look fine," David Sinclair soothed, distracting Don from his appearance in the mirror.

Don wasn't so sure. "I look like an idiot," he muttered. "I _feel_ like an idiot. How did I ever let myself get talked into this?"

"It probably had something to do with the Director telling you that you weren't going to turn down the opportunity," Colby Granger suggested cheerfully.

Cheerful. It wasn't Granger's ass that was going to get laughed at, up on stage, talking into a mike that squealed. Except for the fact that throwing a punch would mess up his suit, Don really wanted swing a wild one.

"Think about how Charlie would be preparing right now," David suggested. "He's been doing this sort of thing for a long time."

Right. Take a hint from the annoying little brother who single-handedly destroyed Don's childhood, just like every other little brother did for every other big brother. Only, in Don's case, it wasn't just sibling rivalry, it was sibling rivalry on a logarithmic scale. Once the genius factor got added in, the annoyance factor shot up to the sky and beyond.

David hadn't had the challenge of up growing up with a certified genius, but he still tried to be sympathetic. He tried for distraction. "You have your notes?"

Moment of panic, as Don couldn't feel the thick wad of three by five cards stuffed into his jacket pocket. "I—there they are." His fingers clenched around the three dozen lifelines, and he could feel the sharp stab of adrenalin dissipate.

"When this is all over, we'll take you out to some over-priced Washington bar and get you drunk, man," Colby promised. "They're calling your name, Don. Get out there and knock 'em dead. In the figurative sense," he added hastily.

Don could hear the loudspeaker reverberating: "I'd like to introduce Special Agent Don Eppes, of the Los Angeles department…"

Oh, shit.

***

"I'd like to introduce Professor Charles Eppes, of CalSci. Dr. Eppes is well-known for the Eppes Convergence, as well as contributions to the world of Mathematics in the fields of…"

McGee let the voice drone on, tuning out the words, in order to concentrate on the man walking across the stage. He didn't need to listen; Dr. Eppes's accomplishments were listed in the program that McGee had clutched in his hand. Charles Eppes was shorter than he'd imagined, slender and with a mop of curls that McGee was certain that Ziva and Abby would see in their dreams for months if they should be fortunate enough to meet the man. Clearly athletic, Dr. Eppes moved easily toward the podium, the giant screen behind him magnifying every move. Large brown eyes scanned the crowd as if hunting for someone that he knew; small crinkles in his face suggested that several such individuals were present. McGee found himself comparing this man to the picture of the other guest speaker, a Professor Marshall Penfield, who would be speaking a bit later in the evening on Discrimination Between Partial Populations. Penfield was much taller—McGee had seen the man in the distance, conversing with some early guests in the lobby—with short and straight mousy brown hair. Penfield was far more the conventional picture of the studious math professor but in math, as in computer science, it was the outcome that mattered. Penfield was well-respected in the field, but Eppes was _revered._ Not that Eppes seemed to realize it: he bestowed a smile upon the audience with a suggestion of "how 'bout we get together afterward for a cup of coffee?"

Not what McGee was interested in; McGee was eager to get to the lecture itself. He could feel the woman in the seat next to him lean forward, drinking in every word.

"They tell me to start my lecture with a joke," Dr. Eppes began, "but every joke I tell seems to go over about as well as a mathematician at a psychic's convention." Mild murmur of polite laughter. "So I'll get right to the heart of the Convergence." Sigh of anticipation. "The focal point of the convergence lies in the concept of…"

McGee inhaled every word. He wouldn't be able to say that he understood _all_ of the Convergence—it was, after all, math rather than computer science—but enough of it got through that he thought he'd be able to explain the gist of it to Abby. None of the others would understand it—get real. Ziva would nod politely, DiNozzo would crack a smart remark, and Gibbs would stare at him as though he'd grown two horns in the middle of his forehead—but Abby would coo and screech, 'of course, McGee! The man's a genius! If I'd only known that when I was trying to pull out the evidence on the Dark Angel case.'

Professor Eppes darted all around the stage during his presentation, gesturing up at the screen which alternated between his blown up image and the slides that he'd prepared to enhance his lecture and then dragging himself back to his podium in a salute to conventional public speaking techniques. The man clearly knew his topic and was prepared to answer any and all questions, including the rather pointed one aimed at him from someone in the front row—was that Penfield himself? Sure looked like it. McGee had heard that there was no love lost between the two—where Eppes easily parried the thrust.

Then it was over. McGee blinked, wondering where the time had gone. Eppes had already clambered down from the stage and was chattering animatedly with a small group including the guy that McGee had already identified as Dr. Penfield.

Penfield towered over the small genius, but didn't seem to stop Dr. Eppes. The hands were still waving just as much as when he was lecturing on stage, and the mouth was moving almost non-stop with only a brief pause to allow the next question to edge its way into the discussion. Ah, small blush there, and McGee deduced that Dr. Eppes had just been asked a question about that little tome he'd published for the mathematically dis-inclined, something about relationships. Well, had to bring in the bucks somehow, and McGee knew that the average college professor made much less than he could in industry. Though he'd thought that Professor Eppes, in demand as he was, could command much higher wages through various projects and consultancies; McGee sighed. Here he was, thinking like an investigator, wondering about a man's sources of income.

Not why Timothy McGee was here. He surveyed his handwritten scribbles on the lecture notes, not remembering in the slightest how they'd gotten there. He glanced again at the group surrounding Professor Eppes, seeing Professor Penfield taking his leave of them to prepare for his own lecture due to start in a few minutes. McGee took that as his cue to make his way out of the lecture hall and into the room next door. Penfield's lecture wouldn't be as enjoyable as Eppes's, but it still had the potential to improve McGee's skills.

***

Don groaned, sinking his head in his hands. "I'm never going to be able to appear in public again. I can't believe I did that!"

"Did what?" Colby asked, honestly bewildered. "Don, you did great! They loved it! Didn't you see all the D.C. directors smiling and nodding their heads?"

"Didn't you hear me?" Don demanded. "I said 'east' for the McMasterson case, and I should have said 'north'. It screwed up the entire logistics."

"I don't think anyone noticed, Don," David told him. "They were concentrating on the slides that you had up on the screen. The animation really got their attention."

"Yeah, well, Charlie's good for something," Don grumbled. "I ran that part by him, and I let him punch it up a little. But just a little," he added quickly.

"Shows the power of knowing when to use a consultant," David told him. "Speaking of whom, are we picking him up later, or what?"

Don glanced automatically at his watch. "Charlie said not to bother, that he'd probably get roped into an all-night bull session. Said that Penfield would be there, so there'd be some hot and heavy debating going on after the formal lectures."

"So we'll get him tomorrow morning?"

"Nope. There are a couple of NSA types—or maybe Pentagon, I can't keep 'em straight where Charlie's concerned—who need a hush-hush with him tomorrow."

"Saturday," Colby noted. "Big?"

"Aren't they all?" Don hoped that he didn't sound petty. What the hell—his team knew the score. They all appreciated Charlie's genius, and knew that the power-mongers behind several governments likewise appreciated what Charlie's genius could do for them. It was sheer luck that Don happened to have been born into the same family and could borrow some of that genius on a moment's notice, and at bargain basement prices. Consultants such as Charlie didn't usually come cheap.  
He pulled himself back on track. "We'll pick him up after his meeting, do the D.C. tourist thing for a couple of hours—got any requests?—and then catch the flight back to L.A."

***

"DiNozzo."

"Boss?" DiNozzo, ignoring the rules of the road which prohibited putting a cell phone to his ear while driving, negotiated a smooth left hand turn using only one hand on the wheel.

"I got the word. Things are heating up. FBI thinks they've got a lead on their missing code and they think it may be in our backyard."

"I'll be at the office in ten minutes."

"Not yet, DiNozzo. Wait until the lead comes through. Just keep your cell handy. And, DiNozzo?"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Tell your date that she might have to find her own ride home tonight."

***

McGee had been right; the Penfield lecture had been solid but lacking in the fireworks that Eppes had displayed so effortlessly. The difference between _brilliant_ and _genius,_ he decided, emerging from the second, smaller lecture hall.

He glanced around, hoping to find the young woman that he'd sat next to in the Eppes lecture, wondering if he could be smooth enough to talk her into a cup of coffee and a rehashing of the lecture. That would be a good way to finish off the evening, and give details to the story that he'd concocted back at the office to get Tony off his back. And maybe, just maybe, he'd find someone compatible enough to pursue a relationship with, a relationship that wouldn't interfere with work.

No such luck. The lobby was clearing out, the crowd—and he used the term loosely—dissipating rapidly as the patrons headed for home to put in a long night on their computer game of choice. It was the new Friday night activity for geeks: devising muscle-bound oafs to hack and slash at electronic foes, the screen-generated muscles in direct proportion to the mental muscles that each had developed through long and hard effort, no steroids required. His intended victim had apparently scooted for the door shortly after Penfield's lecture—he'd spotted her sitting in the middle of the crowd, but hadn't been able to get a seat near hers—and he'd lost her in the general exodus. He sighed; would have been nice, but wasn't going to happen. McGee glanced at his watch, wondering idly how long it would take him to get home. He'd get out early, compared to the rest of the crowd. He'd parked in the next-door hotel parking, one of the upscale places that had attached itself to the conference center for an entirely indoor experience. He ambled along the corridor, noting the bright city lights that shone through the large bay windows lining the walls.

The crowd had separated itself into those headed for the exit and a smaller group that seemed to be convening in one of the back salons in the attached hotel. McGee spotted Professor Eppes showing his credentials to the doorman and receiving permission to enter. There weren't many inside, McGee realized, deciding that in the target salon would be the post-lecture debates. The lecturers would congratulate each other on a successful talk, and then the heated tearing down of theories would begin. McGee longed to be a fly on the wall in that salon. He loved what he did but there were times when he really missed the intellectual give and take of new theories in the making.

He hadn't been able to find the girl in the audience, but he did spy something else: an identification card. It was the conference identification card for Professor Penfield, to be exact. McGee pounced on it, certain that the card had dropped from Professor Penfield's shirt. Dr. Penfield would need it to get inside the salon, McGee knew. The doorman was efficient, only letting in a favored few: McGee recognized Jeanne Boen-Tylock from Yale. Dennison Parker, the professor from GW, was also there.

Penfield would need the identification card returned to get inside with his colleagues. McGee approached the doorman, intending to turn the card in.

The doorman glanced at the card and gave another bored glance at McGee's own face. "Go ahead," the doorman invited, leaching all warmth from the statement and holding open the door.

McGee started to protest—he wasn't Professor Penfield—then bit his tongue. He hadn't realized that his own features were fairly close to that of Professor Penfield's. Given the blurriness of the photo, he could pass. Professor Penfield's darker hair could be set down to photographic inaccuracies.

McGee smiled. He could sit in the back of the room and listen. Penfield would get in; the man would simply produce real credentials from his wallet, and would walk in as if McGee wasn't there. McGee could then proffer the ID badge to Dr. Penfield and perhaps even be invited to remain.

Heaven. A debate worthy of the gods. It was worth a small deception to attend something as elite as this. McGee walked in, holding the ID badge in his hand like a talisman from Dungeons and Dragons.

Eppes was in one corner of the room, arguing amiably with Dr. Boen-Tylock, something involving Diophantine Equations. McGee edged closer, trying to listen in without being intrusive.

He didn't have to worry; both debaters were so engrossed in their topic that someone could have shot down the giant crystal chandelier above their heads and not one of the participants would have noticed.

"It's inherently unstable," Boen-Tylock told Eppes. "You've postulated a _p_ significance of zero point zero five, but anything greater than that will lead to a Type One error."

"True, but when are you going to demand a higher _p_ level?" Eppes wanted to know. "The results will be valid more than ninety five percent of the time. I've used it in real-life applications with excellent results. I'm sure that there will come a time when it won't be valid, but if I can apply it ninety five times out of one hundred, that's a useful application. It's the difference between theoretical and applied mathematics. I can use a different approach for those times when the significance is too great."

 _Lovely._ McGee drank it in. The lectures had been a balm for his intellect, and this was the honey poured over his soul. He almost resented the waiter who paused at his elbow and insisted that he take up a glass of wine.

Then he felt guilty for taking it. He couldn't drink it; Gibbs could call at any moment, letting him know that the code had been located and that all agents of all stripes were closing in and why the hell wasn't McGee closing in with them? Showing up with alcohol on his breath would be a fast track to a short and inglorious career. Worse: he hadn't been invited to this little soiree. He didn't deserve to be here, let alone drink something that his nose told him was considerably better than wine from a box.

All right; he could simply hold the glass in his hand and pretend to sip every now and again. That would prevent the waiter from pushing another glass onto him, and he could listen to Eppes and Boen-Tylock verbally spar.

Someone within eyesight yawned, and McGee found himself yawning along with the man. The yawn traveled around the room, avoiding only Eppes. The math professor set his half-empty glass down, preferring instead to snatch up the napkin that came along with it and jotting a rough drawing to illustrate his point. "Look right here: all the points fall into the positive quadrant, in a mildly logarithmic curve. Doesn't that prove my point?"

"Mm." Boen-Tylock yawned widely, seemingly unable to resist. "But…" Another yawn interrupted her. "Charlie, can we continue this another time? I'm suddenly very tired. It must have been a long day." She staggered, reaching out to the back of an upholstered sofa and easing herself down onto it. "So…tired…"

All around the room, people were sinking onto chairs. One man, not close enough to a sofa, tried propping up the heavy drapes. It didn't work; he slid down onto the floor and toppled over sideways. Eppes himself put a hand to his forehead, staggering drunkenly.

McGee started forward, alarmed. The situation wasn't hard to read: there was something in the drinks beside the usual strength of alcohol. Date rape drug? Possible. What would be the point—

Four men pulling dark masks over their faces barreled into the room. The few people still conscious drew back in fear before being overcome by the drugs in their drink, and McGee hurriedly imitated their actions—to do otherwise would be to invite death from the intruders. He was unarmed; he hadn't expected to need his weapon at this lecture. McGee let his head loll against the pillowed sofa. As an added touch, he allowed the glass to slip from his fingers, splashing the wine onto the thick carpet, the liquid soaking into the fibers. _Hah. The men with masks will never be able to tell that I'm sober. Or awake._ McGee feigned unconsciousness. He listened carefully, keeping his eyes closed but his ears open.

Four men. He could hear them quartering the salon, checking the sleeping inhabitants.

A high-pitched squeal, and a grunt. "This one's awake," one of the men announced grimly. Sounds of a struggle; McGee eased his eyes open just enough to see the man shove a cloth over the woman's nose and mouth, forcing her to inhale. She collapsed in his arms, and he eased her silently to the carpet. _Not any more, she's not._

This was clearly a well-planned mission. These men were professionals, and they had the tools of their trade with them. They'd somehow spiked the drinks, and came prepared to deal with anyone who hadn't imbibed. McGee had no doubt that they were armed, although he doubted that they wanted to use their guns. Guns, even guns with silencers, made noise and left blood spatters. This group wanted covert silence.

What were they after? The answer was clear in moments. "This is Eppes," one of them announced in hushed tones, examining the body. "He's out cold."

"Start moving him out," another advised. "You find Penfield yet?"

"Nah. Wait a minute; this might be him."

McGee felt someone prying at this hands, and remembered that he was still holding on to Professor Penfield's conference identification badge. His heart sank.

"Got 'im. Geez, this place takes a crappy picture. Barely looks like him."

"We're not here to get prom pictures," the first told him. "Wrap him up, and let's move. We don't know how long we can keep people outside from getting suspicious."

The four worked in silence, but McGee—as an unwitting participant—had no trouble following what they were doing. They wrapped a heavy harness under his arms and around his chest, and he heard the clink of a metal D-ring snapping into place. Another moment, and he almost yelped aloud when the harness began to drag him up against the outside wall. McGee barely managed to prevent any noise from emerging as he was pulled up and out through the window to the salon into the cool night air. An unseen crack of the eyelids told him that Professor Eppes had undergone the same routine.

Two more men pulled his 'unconscious' form into a room one flight above, sliding him upward along the outside wall of the hotel. They worked silently and efficiently, unhooking the snaps and removing the harness. McGee briefly debated trying to overpower the pair—surprise could be a powerful tool, if used properly—but then they snapped plastic ties around his wrists, tightening them just so. McGee held the grimace inside. Too late now for a surprise attack. Even an unexpected dash for the door wouldn't get him anywhere; another set of plastic ties went around his ankles, cutting into the skin.

Still, they hadn't gagged him. McGee was grimly curious as to how this group expected to get Professor Eppes and himself out of the hotel. In a trunk? Trite, but it would work unless one or both came suddenly awake. Gagging was risky; people suffocated on gags, unable to drag sufficient oxygen into their lungs. This group was clearly out to kidnap Professor Eppes and Professor Penfield, and they wouldn't want to chance one or both dying inside a makeshift coffin.

Speaking of which: they thought that McGee was Penfield. Flattering, but patently untrue. Sure, McGee supposed that there was a superficial resemblance but anyone who knew Dr. Penfield would be able to see at a glance that a mistake had been made.

That mistake would likely end up in McGee's swift demise, which meant the longer he could keep up the charade the longer he'd be alive. Chancing yet another look through slitted eyelids to make sure that the pair were busy with McGee's fellow captive, McGee eased his wallet with his NCIS badge out of his hip pocket— _thank goodness I put it there. I'd never be able to get it out of my jacket, not with my hands tied_ —and slid it under the edge of the flounce hiding the legs of the chair that he was propped against.

Back to the original question: how did this group expect to get Eppes and 'Penfield' out of the hotel conference center?

He soon had his answer: one of the men rolled up McGee's sleeve, inserting a slender needle. McGee bit his tongue against the sudden burn inside his elbow, fighting to keep himself limp and 'unconscious'.

In moments, pretense was no longer an issue.

* * *

"Eppes. Wait up."

Don turned at the sound of his name, David and Colby turning with him. An older man was striding toward them, trench coat flapping behind. Don swiftly sized him up: not particularly tall, features unremarkable. This was a man built to fade into a crowd, someone to be dismissed as a mid-level manager trying very hard to hang onto his job during the economic fall-out.

Don was not taken in. There were many people who knew his name, knew that he was in D.C., and most of them had just finished listening to Don make a fool of himself on stage a mere couple of hours ago. It didn't matter that both David and Colby insisted that he'd done fine. Don knew better. He knew that he'd screwed up the directions on that one slide. How could he have said 'east' when it was 'north'? He was a blithering idiot.

The FBI agents in the crowd, however, had dispersed quickly, heading for home and a quiet hour or two before turning in. Don, David, and Colby had tried a local bar or two, found them singularly unappealing, and had finished up their evening in the hotel lobby, Don brooding over his mistake. They had just been ready to head upstairs to their rooms when the man walked in and scanned the lobby.

"Special Agent Don Eppes?"

That narrowed it down for Don. Only FBI types knew that he was here, let alone how to find him. Don acknowledged the identification. "Yes?" _Who wants to know?_

The man pulled out his own identification, and the FBI badge gleamed in the muted lobby lighting. "Special Agent Tobias Fornell. I've been looking for you."

Fornell? That name rang bells, and from the looks of things, both David and Colby also recognized the name. The man was almost a living legend in the FBI, known for accomplishing a few minor miracles. The only reason why the guy wasn't running the whole department, it was said, was because he had a hard time dealing with idiots. Don could sympathize; he too disliked the political maneuvering that went on in the upper levels of administration.

On the other hand, this was D.C. Dealing with politicians was the name of the game. And why was Fornell looking for one Special Agent Don Eppes? The tone of Fornell's voice wasn't the _gee, I wanted to ask for your autograph_ sort of sound.

Still, Don and his team were guests in this town. Don kept his own tone polite. "How can I help you, Agent Fornell?"

Fornell didn't beat around the bush. "You've heard that there's a stray message floating around."

"I heard something of the sort." Don didn't say that it had been the main topic of conversation, interspersed with the usual congratulatory comments that he'd received after his lecture. He'd been grateful at the time; it meant that most of the agents in the audience had their attention split, so that they weren't paying as much attention to him as they normally would. The 'message' was actually something in code, something about bin Laden's whereabouts maybe, or something getting smuggled into the country. Scuttlebutt had it that both sides wanted it: the U.S. so that they could send a smart bomb with bin Laden's name on it, and bin Laden so that he could determine just who was coordinating his travel itinerary with the infidels. That was assuming that it really did contain a location; the other story was that it was a recipe for hummus that bin Laden sent just to watch all of D.C. run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Really funny.

"The whole D.C. team's on alert," Fornell continued. "I got people at headquarters surfing the 'net and tracking phone calls. We need it back, Eppes."

It sounded like Fornell was leading up to something, but for the life of him, Don couldn't figure out what. D.C. had plenty of people, plenty of high talent worker bees. They didn't need Don and his team, and certainly not at this hour of the night. Good as they were, three people weren't going to make the difference.

As much as he didn't like them, Don still knew the rules of polite agency behavior. He stifled a yawn, hoping that his breath didn't stink from his last beer, and asked, "how can we help?"

Okay, so Colby didn't actually groan in dismay. Fornell returned a tight little smile, acknowledging the self-control showed by the Los Angeles department. "You've got a reputation, Eppes, for the innovative use of consultants, guys that other cities wouldn't consider let alone hire. I hear your math guy is in town." Fornell took a breath. "We need 'im, Eppes. We got nothing, and we may be looking at something big. Call him in."

Just like that. Call him. At something close to midnight, this Fornell guy wanted Don to call Charlie away from the academic equivalent of DisneyWorld to find a needle in a haystack. Was this how Fornell had gotten his reputation, by pushing everyone else into doing his bidding? Don would have thought that the man could do better, considering his record.

Fornell wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. Don could see that. Any objections, and Fornell was ready to push the 'national security' crap buttons. Don briefly wondered whether or not to push back, what the consequences might be for the L.A. office. He sighed: might as well get this over with. With luck, Charlie would say no. With even more luck, Charlie would be so engrossed in his post-lecture debates with colleagues that he wouldn't even realize that his cell was calling. Then they could all go back to the City of Angels with a clear conscience and let the D.C. chickens run around in circles, squawking about whatever. D.C. had fixed problems like this in the past, and they could do it again, all without the help of the Los Angeles folks and their consultants.

Don stifled the second sigh, and pulled out his cell. Speed dial four went to Charlie, and he listened to the ringing on the other end, actually relieved when the call went to voicemail. "Hey, Chuck, it's me. Call me ASAP, okay? My D.C. connections have a question for you." There. That ought to be sufficiently vague that no one could accuse him of leaking information, yet still let Charlie know that this would be official. Don turned back to Fornell. "Not picking up. Give me your card; I'll let him know what the story is tomorrow when I pick him up. I'll see if I can persuade him to take a look."

Fornell shook his head. "Not good enough, Eppes. This thing is going down _now_." He looked away, coming to a decision. "I'm temporarily attaching you to the D.C. office, Eppes. As of now, the three of you are on the clock."

"Hey, wait a minute," Colby protested. "You can't do that!"

"I just did, Agent Granger," Fornell told him, proving that he'd done his homework. Fornell knew exactly who he was dealing with, every name of each agent on Don's team and their special talents and skills down to the mole on Don's ass. "You can pick up your overtime pay on the way back to L.A. when this thing is over. Like I said: this thing is big. Now, where's this math thing that your brother is doing? Is he still there?"

"I don't know." Don was very glad that he didn't have the answer. It helped to salve his annoyance. "This is pretty high-handed of you, Fornell—"

"You're right; it is, and I'll apologize later, after we get the code back into safe hands," Fornell broke in. "My car is out front. Where is your brother doing his thing?"

***

"Ziva?"

"Gibbs? Any word?"

"Chatter's getting hot and heavy. Everybody's getting called in."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

"I already got hold of DiNozzo. You heard from McGee? He's not picking up."

"That's not like him," the Mossad officer observed. "Tony, I would expect to try to dodge your call, but not McGee. Perhaps his phone is in a dead area?"

"Possibly. Try him on your way in. Tell McGee to get his butt in here like the rest of us."

***

Fornell was finally forced to use the flashing strobe that he carried in the back seat of his car to get through the mass of vehicles. The conference center, surrounded by hotels, was only mildly busy despite being a Friday night. Don was reluctantly impressed by the man's driving abilities, Fornell edging the car forward as if he intended to knock people down if they didn't get out of the street and out of his way. Fornell flashed his badge at the rent-a-cop outside. "FBI. Where's the math conference being held?"

"What math conference?"

"The one where a guy named Eppes was speaking. It started at seven, in one of the conference halls."

"Beats me. We had three conferences going on. The last one's just letting out. You want me to call somebody?"

"Yes, I want you to call somebody," Fornell growled. "I want you to call somebody who knows where the hell the math conference was held."

Which is how they found out that the math conference, sponsored by Intro-verse, Inc., and co-hosted by GW University (both names in large letters overshadowing all the lecturers and the topic of the conference), was in Conference Area Number Three, an area so small that no donors had tried to purchase the rights to have the area named after them as yet. Fornell tossed a glance at Don.

Don shrugged. "It's not as though he's lecturing about 'The Attraction Equation'," he offered.

"Right. Would have been a mob scene." Proving yet again that Special Agent Fornell had a lot more going on upstairs than he cared to let on. Don was willing to bet that Fornell had an equally thick mental file about one Charles Eppes as he did on Don or any or his team.

Fornell pulled his car into one of the slots designated for VIPs near the main entrance, and tossed an FBI sign onto the front dash. He caught Colby's eye. "Around here, Agent Granger, this qualifies as VIP." With that cryptic remark, he led the way into the Conference Center, pushing his way upstream through the lessening crowd.

He cornered the kid at the information kiosk, in the center of the lobby, and flashed his shield. "The math conference. Which way is it?"

This one was clearly a student at one of the local universities, earning her spending money for college. She returned Fornell's shield flash with a brilliant flash of her own, this one with teeth straightened with Mummy and Daddy's money. "And _which_ math conference would that _be_ , sir?"

Don broke in, before Fornell could break some of those teeth. "Conference Area Three. Where is it?" _As if there was more than one math conference going on at any time in the known universe? I doubt it._

"Ah." Another picture-perfect smile from Kiosk Barbie. "Conference Area _Three_ is in the north wing of the Conference Center. Follow the _blue_ corridor, not the _yellow,_ and keep to the _right_ at all times in order to allow _exiting_ patrons to _exit_."

"Thanks," Fornell growled, not meaning it in the slightest, leading them in the direction of the _blue_ corridor, not the _yellow_ , but failing to keep to the _right_ at all times.

Colby leaned in to David. "And they think that people in L.A. are looney-toons."

They found Conference Area Three. The lecture hall still boasted a neon sign with letters marching across the banner stating 'Intro-verse, Inc.' and 'GW University' but not giving any hint that a lecture on higher level mathematics had taken place inside. The lecture hall itself was dim, and all the lecturers and listeners had long since departed. The only two people left were the janitors, sweeping up after the crowd.

That didn't stop Fornell. "You," he called, pointing at one janitor and holding up his badge. "Talk to me. Is this where the math guys were lecturing?"

Both of the janitors looked nervously. They looked at each other. One said something incomprehensible to the other.

Fornell sighed, and pulled out his cell. He dialed a well-known number. "Baker? Fornell. Get me Sergei. Sergei, yeah, it's me. Listen, I got a couple of guys here. I need to know where the—that's right." He handed his cell over to the janitor. "Listen," he instructed them, forgetting that the English word wouldn't mean anything to the pair.

It didn't matter. The one with Fornell's phone looked puzzled for a moment, spoke a few words, then let a voluble torrent flood forth. There was a little more give and take, and then the janitor handed the cell back to Fornell. Fornell listened briefly. "Thanks, Sergei." He closed up the cell. "This way," he told his newly-hired team.

David caught up to him. "What was that? They weren't speaking Russian."

"Nope. Azerbaijani." At David's not quite believing stare, Fornell added, "this is D.C., Sinclair. You think we play around? I got experts on about three hundred different languages on the other end of my phone, and believe me, I need 'em."

***

"I," DiNozzo grumbled, "was not meant to sit in front of a computer, tracking signals. Where's McGee? He _likes_ this sort of stuff."

"I don't know, DiNozzo." Gibbs's voice had that dangerous quality to it, the note that said that he was more than displeased and that if he couldn't taken it out on the person who had displeased him then he would be more than happy to slap DiNozzo upside the head as a less than adequate substitute. "Suppose you try to find him."

DiNozzo hastily tried to deflect the coming retribution. "Been doing that, boss. No answer on his cell. No answer at his home. Want me to put out an APB, boss? I'm on that screen right now."

"No, DiNozzo, I do not. I told McGee to keep his cell close at hand. I want _you_ to keep your butt in that chair and monitor the chatter."

"Right, boss." DiNozzo turned his attention back to the computer in front of him. "We have here a call from Benny the Snitch to the Chinese Embassy. Now, what would Benny be calling the Chinese Embassy for? Why do I _not_ think that he's calling for take-out?"

Ziva held up her hand for quiet, listening carefully to the voices coming over her headset. "Hush, Tony. This is important."

DiNozzo shut up instantly, Gibbs rising to loom over her.

Ziva put the call on loudspeaker, though the words coming through meant nothing to either Gibbs or DiNozzo. Ziva started whispering over the conversation, translating on the fly, the digital recorder picking up the call for later, more intensive translation. "Five million U.S. dollars is the opening bid. Alternately, a maintenance fee of one million per year for services ongoing, with results going to all who contract with them—damn, I don't know who 'they' are—contracts are verbal, monies going to Banc Suisse…that's all," she finished.

"Who was that?" Gibbs asked.

"The call came in from Yuri Schinoff. My people have long suspected him of international gun-running, but as long as we know about him and he stays little time, we allow him to continue."

"Small time, Ziva. It means unimportant."

"I know what it means, Tony, and Schinoff is indeed little time. He is useful to us because he is careless in his dealings. Until the day that his carelessness gets him killed, my people will continue to monitor his conversations. Such as this one." She indicated the technological set up on her desk that had finished recording the phone call. "I do not know to whom Schinoff made the call. The time spent was too short to trace." She tossed an annoyed glance toward the empty desk to her left. "And McGee was not here," she added, implying that the outcome might have been different had that problem been rectified.

"What was that about a 'maintenance fee'?" Gibbs wanted to know.

"Schinoff was not clear. It appears that someone in this country wishes to open a service to the intelligence community by offering to slice and dice any code. One gains access by paying a maintenance fee, and then receives a certain number of low-level deciphered codes plus the ability to purchase additional code-breakings."

DiNozzo whistled. "Wow. Somebody's come up with a new work-at-home business: Code-Breakers R Us."

"More than that, DiNozzo. There aren't too many people in the world who could do that sort of code-breaking." Gibbs had moved on to the next step. "That requires some heavy duty computer tools and, more important, some top notch talent. That will narrow down the players."

"What code-breakers have recently left their country of origin?" Ziva followed along the same path. "None from Israel. Syria and Lebanon have none worth the effort. Russia and the Ukraine do, but none are known to have left their homes. Our people keep a close eye on them."

"The Chinese?"

"Possibly, but they typically watch their own talents too carefully for any to try to defect," Ziva thought.

"The CIA should have more information on that," Gibbs told them. "DiNozzo, notify CenCom. Tell 'em that we're going to investigate. Get your gear." He halted, tossing a glare toward the empty seat in the far corner of the bull pen. "And give McGee another call. Tell him to get his ass in here _now_."

DiNozzo and Ziva exchanged a sympathetic glance. Neither one wanted to be in McGee's shoes when the boss finally got hold of the errant NCIS agent.

***

Don, his team, and Fornell walked swiftly toward the salon in the adjoining hotel to the Conference Center. The corridor switched from utilitarian linoleum to a plush carpeting, and large windows lined the walls allowing the pedestrians to look out over the night lights of D.C. in air-conditioned comfort. They used the enclosed bridge to cross over the three lane highway masquerading as a parking lot from the conference center to the hotel, the exiting patrons of Conference Areas One and Two pouring out slow as cold molasses flowing uphill. Don knew intellectually that there were some patrons of Conference Area Three from Charlie's lecture in the crowd, but the numbers were somewhere in the range of one percent. Charlie would be able to estimate the percentage at a moment's notice, but that wasn't why they were after his brother. Fornell had more important ideas in mind.

Come to think of it, what did Fornell have in mind? Don caught up with the smaller FBI agent, stretching his legs to keep up. "Just what do you think that Charlie can do, Fornell?"

Fornell didn't miss a step. "Good question, Eppes. What do you think?"

"You're the one asking for his help, Fornell. You haven't even filled in me or my team on this. You're just dragging us along."

"You're right, Eppes, but you're probably better off not knowing. This is D.C., Eppes. This is big time. This isn't Hollywood movie stars OD'ing on crack."

"We get our share, Fornell." Don couldn't help the warning note in his voice. "And we work better when we're not kept in the dark. You're the one who dragged us back on duty."

This time Fornell did deign to toss a glance in Don's direction. He kept his voice low. "We think that the missing code details where to pick up something that will make nine eleven look like a kiddy brawl in a sandbox, Eppes. We know that it's from bin Laden—or at least, from some of his people—and we know that it's coming into this area. Once we find it, the NSA can crack it with their people and we can intercept. Nobody will know how close we're coming to a national disaster except for the President and a few key members of Congress."

"Charlie consults for the NSA," Colby observed.

"Right. That's not why I want him," Fornell said. "In order for the NSA to crack the code, we have to get our hands on it. We've got too many directions to go, children. We need to narrow down our search."

"Which is where Charlie comes in," David nodded.

They entered the hotel itself, the lobby almost empty. There was a dark and crowded bar off to one side, lonely businessmen and women trying to fill an empty spot in life. Don passed it by; not where they'd find Charlie.

"Over there." Fornell pointed to a set of double doors, a doorman standing with another man, arguing. None could hear what they were saying over the distance.  
There was something familiar about the man arguing with the doorman, Don realized. He looked like…He sort of looked like…

"Dr. Penfield?"

Geek, but without Charlie's mop of dark curls. After the fuss that Charlie had made a few years ago, Don had taken a few minutes to track down information about Charlie's rival. The two math whizzes had been classmates, and Charlie on more than one occasion had noted—at the top of his lungs—that he disagreed with Penfield, that Penfield embodied all the character traits that Charlie despised, and that if he never saw Professor Penfield again it would be too soon. Don had simply hidden a smile and gone about his business, certain that an opportunity to tease his younger brother would eventually arise.

Tempting, but this was not that opportunity. Don very much doubted that Special Agent Fornell would appreciate the humor that Don would bring to the table.

Penfield looked down his nose at Don, using his spectacles to his best advantage. "Do I know you?"

Come to think of it, that was the way that Don had met Charlie's rival the first time, too. Getting offended was not the way to advance his own objectives. Don ignored the challenge, and offered his hand. "Don Eppes. Charlie's brother."

"Ah. The FBI agent." Penfield turned back to his own dilemma, ignoring Don's effort to be polite. "I mislaid my ID from the conference. Tell this man that I am expected inside."

"Sorry, sir. Only people on the guest list are invited. You don't have proper identification."

Something was wrong, something beyond the typical nervousness that most people showed when approached by members of law enforcement. Everyone felt guilty over something, that Don knew, but this was setting all of Don's nerves on edge. The doorman _smelled_ of guilt.

He flashed his badge. "FBI. We need to go in there."

The doorman tried. "Sir, I was told to keep everyone out. Everyone, sir."

More wrong signals flashed forth. Why wasn't Penfield being allowed inside? Even without a conference ID, he should have been on the guest list. Why was the doorman sweating? Why didn't Don hear voices coming from inside? Knowing Charlie, there would be some heated discussions happening inside, with his brother in the thick of it.

Too quiet.

Something was happening. Something bad.

Fornell felt the same thing. His gun appeared in his hand, and David and Colby followed suit. "Hold him," he instructed David. "Eppes?"

Don placed himself along the edge of the door. This quiet, there was always the possibility of something lethal being fired through the door as it opened. "On three. One. Two. Three—" He shoved the door open with his foot.

"FBI!" Fornell snarled, advancing, gun in both fists.

It wasn't what they had expected. At first glance, it looked like the end of an orgy. There were sleeping bodies all over the room, glasses falling onto their sides and long since spilling the contents onto the carpet. Not too long ago—all of the wet spots were still soggy. Nothing had had a chance to evaporate. The bodies too had fallen over themselves, some onto the wet carpet.

Someone snored.

Fornell spoke first. "What the hell—?"

Don knelt, and peeled back the eyelid of one of the sleepers. "Drugged," he diagnosed swiftly.

"All of them," Colby agreed, checking another of the sleeping bodies.

"Charlie?" Don scanned the room, aware that Fornell was doing the same thing. "Charlie?" None of the bodies belonged to his brother. "Where is he? Why isn't he here?"

"Could he have left before this happened?" Fornell asked.

David dragged the doorman inside the salon. "Talk," he demanded. "What happened?"

The doorman was openly sweating now. "I swear, I don't know, man. They just told me not to let anyone else in. I swear!"

" _Who_ told you?" David snarled. "Buddy, you are in big trouble right about now. I'd start spilling my guts, if I were you."

Dr. Penfield poked his head inside the salon, and his eyes grew large. "Good lord!" His gaze roamed over the various bodies. "Heavens! Dr. Boen-Tylock! Professor Parker! What was going on in here?"

"Stay out," Don ordered. "We have a crime scene in here. Don't touch anything, Penfield." He turned to Granger. "Colby, call for emergency response. We'll need to get these people to a hospital."

"This is terrible!" Penfield babbled. "What's wrong with them? What happened?"

Colby pushed by him. "Go sit in the lobby, Dr. Penfield," he instructed the math professor. "We'll get to you in a moment. Don't go anywhere."

"Good heavens, man, you can't think that I'm involved!"

"We'll get to you in a moment," Don repeated Colby's words, turning back to the doorman. He _loomed_ over the man. "Listen to me very closely, because I'm only going to say this once. This is a national security matter, which means that if you're involved with this, they're going to try you for treason. That means that you're going to be _executed_ for this. Got it?"

Right move. Don's gut had been dead on. The man broke in front of them.

The story wasn't complex. The man was out of work, desperate to earn some cash by working as a doorman while he looked for something along the lines of his old job in the financial sector. A man had come along and offered him one thousand dollars to make sure that no one else entered the salon after all the guests had been let in. It was what he was supposed to do, the doorman told the FBI agents, so he'd accepted; if a crazy man offers money to do what you'd do anyway, take the cash and run. The doorman had carefully checked off all of the invited guests, then turned the list over to the man who had walked away and disappeared into the elevator. It wasn't as though there was anything important going on inside, just a bunch of math teachers getting together for drinks and pi. It wasn't supposed to involve National Security! It was just a quiet party with a bunch of stuffy math teachers! After the man had disappeared into the elevator, it had been even quieter, then he'd let in four additional businessmen who hadn't been on his list. The doorman was almost in tears.

"We need another copy of the list," Fornell realized. "We need to see who's missing besides your brother, Eppes."

It hit Don with all the delicacy of a tsunami. _Charlie_ was missing! His _brother_ was gone. His brother was not among the snoring, sleeping mathematicians whose post-lecture debate had been so rudely interrupted by spiked liquor. He had known the fact, but when Fornell _said_ it… Don grabbed at a straw. "Maybe he wasn't here, for some reason. Somebody check the bar. The men's room, maybe."

"Maybe." Fornell's face showed what he thought of that.

"Got a copy of the list right here, Don." Colby handed it over. "Got it from the front desk."

Don shoved it under the doorman's nose. "Who was here? Who didn't show up? What about a guy who looked pretty young compared to the others, dark curly hair and brown eyes? Did you see him?"

The doorman's nose was red and his eyes blotchy. He didn't need to look at the sheet of paper. "They were all here. I checked off all of the names."

"Not mine," Penfield piped up from his seat nearby. "I didn't get in."

"Look, Don." Colby pointed to the list. "Penfield's name is right here, clear as day. Somebody went in, posing as Penfield. Maybe that's why his ID was missing. Somebody pinched it off him. That could have been the person who spiked the drinks."

"Maybe." It was a possibility. "Count the people who are here; quick, before the ambulances arrive to cart them away. How many are missing? Besides Charlie, I mean."

Fornell did a head count. "Just two, Eppes: your brother and whoever was posing as Penfield. All the rest match the names on this list." He glared around him, glared at the ambulance attendants dragging stretchers toward the scene. "What the hell is going on?"

* * *

 _Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore._

The line echoed through what was left of McGee's muddled brains. The only problem was that the line wasn't delivered by either the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, or the Cowardly Lion. The words, as McGee heard them in his head, had that distinctive DiNozzo airy tweak to them as though the man was once again regaling his comrades with his encyclopedic knowledge of movie trivia.

That wasn't the most unfortunate thing. Once the line had finished rattling around inside his mind, the Flying Monkey music took over and wouldn't quit. It was enough to make him sick to his stomach.

No, that wasn't what was making him sick. It was the hangover effect of whatever those men in hoods had shot him up with. It was the fact that he was stuffed into the trunk of a car, air hot and foul, with another hot and stinking body lying next to his. It was the jouncing up and down and side to side with every turn the car took, inflicting bruises whenever he hit something else.

Which was when McGee realized that he was already processing the scene: tied up. Second body. Moving to another location.

Memory came back in a rush: getting hoisted out of the salon window after Professor Eppes, with the men in hoods believing that McGee was Professor Penfield. Getting stuffed into some sort of burlap bag was another remembrance, right after getting stabbed with a hypodermic needle.

He could have done without any of it.

McGee swallowed hard, sternly commanding his stomach to behave. He was an NCIS agent, trained to deal with these sorts of situations.

Actually, no, he wasn't. He defied any of his instructors at Quantico to come up with a scenario that approximated this slice of real life for anyone except those destined for undercover work. McGee would have been very happy with the occasional foray outside of the office to pick up evidence for Abby, Queen of Forensics and The Night, and then return to his beloved computers to track down evil-doers in ways never imagined a generation ago. Doing his crime-fighting seated in front of a flat screen would have suited him just fine.

Time for a little deductive reasoning: it was reasonable to suspect that the foul-smelling body next to him belonged to Professor Charles Eppes, the man who had been kidnapped along with pseudo-Penfield. He tried to test that hypothesis: "Dr. Eppes?"

That was what he tried to say. What actually emerged from between his lips was muffled and in no way resembling actual words, which meant that Special Agent McGee was unable to test his hypothesis as to the identity of his fellow passenger in the trunk of this vehicle. He was, however, able to glean another small piece of information: he was now gagged.

McGee sighed, and tried to brace himself as best as he could against the sides of the trunk, trying to prevent both he and his fellow captive from the bruises that would inevitably be produced.

It was going to be a very long journey.

But considering what lay at the other end, McGee suspected that the journey would end too soon.

***

"Forensics is on its way," Fornell announced, glaring at the room as if the place ought to be writing out a sworn affidavit as to what had occurred.

He wasn't about to get any information from the most recent occupants. Not one was awake, and by now the last ones were being carted off by ambulance attendants. The most awake of the collection of mathematicians was only able to mutter incoherently.

Not drunk. Of that, Don was certain. He had seen his brother drunk on rare occasions, and believing that a collection of mathematicians, engaged in hot debate over whatever theory took their fancy, had simultaneously gotten inebriated to the point of unconsciousness was not going to happen. If something hadn't interfered, then they all would have been at it right now, screeching at each other as to when, why, and how two plus two failed to add up to four.

Likewise, waiting for Forensics to show was also not going to happen any time soon. It was a toss up as to which city possessed the worst traffic that would slow up the wagon, which meant that the D.C. Forensics guys wouldn't be here for another half hour or so. Don had more important things to do. He had a _brother_ to find.

Fornell had already called for the hotel hired help to be sequestered for questioning. That would take manpower, and Don had other thoughts in mind. The crime scene was now littered with the footprints and wheel tracks from stretchers removing drugged bodies.

David moved in. "You think the guy impersonating Penfield was the one to slip the drugs into the drinks?"

"Maybe. It fits. We can take it as a working theory."

There was another method of escape, for a way to take a body out of the room unnoticed, and Don moved toward the heavily drape-encrusted windows, sliding the velvet fabric aside. Instincts correct: there were some scratches in the paint on the sill of the window and the scratches were recent. The edges of each scratch was crisp and clean. "Bingo," he called out grimly. "This is how they took Charlie out, without being seen." Reflexes honed in Fugitive Recovery kicked in, and he looked carefully along each edge of the window. "They went up from here," Don determined, noting the matching paint scratches on the top edge. "Rope burns." He pushed open the window, craning his head to look up along the tall wall of the hotel. "How far up?"

"This place has got thirty six floors." Fornell came up beside him, David and Colby in his wake. "It'll take too long to investigate all of them."

"We don't need to." Don kept staring at the windows marching up in a straight line. "The next three floors should be more than enough." He pulled his head back in. "Let's move, people."

***

Yuri Schinoff lived in an elegant older mansion on the outskirts of D.C., in a neighborhood, DiNozzo reflected, that ought to house a better class of people. He pulled up in front of the place, putting the car in park. Neither Gibbs nor Ziva waited for him to finish turning off the engine; both were already out of the car and halfway up the walk before DiNozzo could catch up.

At this time of year, the azaleas were in bloom. DiNozzo allowed the periphery of his vision to enjoy the gentle profusion of pink and white petals that lined the walk to the front door. The large dark panels were of fake mahogany, the owners of the mansion having replaced the real wood with more durable plastic and tacked long panels of colored glass alongside of the double doors to make the place seem welcoming. Three stories tall—DiNozzo could look up, and up again, seeing garrets jutting out stark against a single passing white cloud just underneath the quarter moon. Lovely place; DiNozzo had grown up around such elegance.

Currently, he preferred something more spare. More modern. More in keeping with his paycheck.

Gibbs rapped on the door, eschewing the doorbell set in fake wood to the left of the door. The sound echoed hollowly in the entry hall beyond the door and seeped out to the front stoop where they waited.

They waited. Gibbs lifted his hand knock again, this time more impatiently.

The door cracked open before he could apply knuckles to plastic. A chubby face appeared. "Yes?"

Gibbs flashed his badge. "NCIS. We're looking for Mr. Yuri Schinoff."

"Not here. This is night. Go away."

Gibbs stuck his foot in the door, preventing the man from closing it. "Not a good idea, Mr. Schinoff, lying to federal agents. Your picture is plastered over several walls."

Schinoff gave in with poor grace, holding the door open for them. "You ask questions. You go." His accent was thick.

"You give us the answers we want, we'll go even quicker," Gibbs promised him. He glanced around, taking in the crystal chandelier and the brocaded furniture. "Nice place."

Schinoff wasn't interested in showing off his home. "Go faster. Ask, then get out."

DiNozzo played along. "Not very hospitable of you, Schinoff," he complained. "Here we are, admiring your lovely home. What business did you say that you were in? Oh, that's right: you didn't say."

Ziva was circling the room like a shark sniffing out blood. "What business are you in, Mr. Schinoff?"

"I put business deals together. You finished now? Is bedtime."

"Not quite." Gibbs too was taking his time, looking at everything there was to see. Not that any of them expected to see something, not out in the open, but that wasn't the point. The object of the game was to rattle Schinoff so that something would drop. " A bunch of people were discussing code-breaking. Your name came up."

"What of it?" Schinoff started to say, then chose another tack. "Means nothing to me. Not involved."

"Really? Never do business with Banc Suisse?"

"I do business with many banks all over world."

"So I imagine that Banc Suisse would be one of them," DiNozzo purred. He picked up a gold-rimmed dish and pretended to inspect it before putting it back onto its shelf. "Nice. Wouldn't work for smuggling a code into the country, though."

"I don't spy," Schinoff insisted. "Don't smuggle nothing." His accent was growing thicker; a clear sign, DiNozzo decided, that the man was getting nervous. "I am upstanding, honorable businessman. You have no right to question me."

Gibbs loomed over him. "We have _every_ right to question you, Mr. Schinoff." He slipped around to the back of his quarry, so that his voice would whisper into only one ear from behind. "You made a call less than an hour ago, Mr. Schinoff."

"Not me. I call many people, have many friends."

DiNozzo closed in from the other side, blocking the smaller man between them. "Maybe someone else in this house did the calling? Perhaps we ought to search the place? Make sure that you're here alone? That way you wouldn't have to take the blame. They execute spies, you know."

Flash of eyes, flash of fear.

"Who knows what we would find when we search your home?" Ziva's smile belonged on a cat playing with a trapped mouse. "Names, perhaps? Contacts? Those names would clear up a lot of questions," she lied, knowing that a small operator such as Schinoff would never have access to the big boys of international espionage.

"Of course," Gibbs added thoughtfully, "if we got a name, someone that was a better prospect for intelligence than you, we'd have to hustle off after them. We'd have to leave you behind with just a warning about making phone calls to people who just might be enemies of the United States government."

Schinoff didn't know how unimportant he was. He only knew that he was facing imminent ruin. Exposure of his clientele, he thought, would result in either long imprisonment at the hands of the U.S. government or a fast and painful death at the hands of disgruntled clients. He wilted. "Called Kwitarunge."

"Leonard Kwitarunge?" Gibbs knew the name. "Arms dealer, out of East Africa?"

Ziva's eyes narrowed. "If we trace your call, we will find that it goes to Kwitarunge?"

Schinoff tightened his lips. "Yes."

"Not a pleasant individual," DiNozzo observed. "In fact, he—"

Crack!

The glass in the front window shattered, courtesy of a small and slender bullet crashing through it at a high rate of speed. The skull in the front of Schinoff's head likewise shattered, courtesy of the same bullet. Blood sprayed out, hitting the plushly carpeted rug.

"Sniper!" Gibbs yelled. Already his own gun was in his hand, and he was crouched behind the sofa, counting on meager upholstery to provide whatever cover it could. "Across the street!" Swift decisions: "DiNozzo, call for back up! Ziva, cover me!" He darted to the door, pausing as he opened it, hesitant to expose himself as a target.

Good call. Two more bullets buried themselves in the doorframe not two inches from his nose. Gibbs pulled back, Ziva at his elbow.

"Count of three. One, two, thr—"

Both dashed out, shoulder-rolling into bushes on either side of the walk, counting on the shrubbery and the darkness to mask their exact whereabouts. Ziva's covering fire came first, but Gibbs's came closer to the target.

It was the house across the street. Both spotted the sharp glint of something long and metallic poking out of the window, something that spit an orange lick of flame along with another bullet.

Hand signals: Ziva to the right. DiNozzo, hot on her heels and barreling out of the house, to the left. More covering fire, and the three agents advanced, using the trees as shields.

"SWAT's on its way," DiNozzo yelled.

"Gonna be too late," Gibbs growled, putting another bullet right where he wanted it.

Didn't help; the three of them heard the roar of an engine, and a motorcycle screeched away on smoking tires. Ziva threw another round of lead after the sniper, but they all knew even as she fired that the distance was too great.

Gibbs swung around. "Schinoff—?"

DiNozzo stopped him. "Too late, boss. Already a candidate for Ducky's table."

***

"This is it." Don didn't have to take more than two steps into the room positioned immediately above the salon from where Charlie had been kidnapped. He could _smell_ it.

Don held himself back. As much as he wanted to dash inside and tear the room apart, he refused to allow himself the gratification. There was too much at stake, too much to lose by not following the rules. Stomp over the wrong footprint in the rug, and a valuable clue would be lost.

Instead, he forced himself to take his time, feeling both his own team and Special Agent Fornell behind, watching his every move. He allowed his instincts to come to the forefront, those same instincts that he'd honed on the deserts of New Mexico chasing fugitives. They'd served him well then, and they would serve him well now.

The room was substantially smaller than the one below that Charlie had been taken from, with the hotel-standard king-sized bed and a dresser and desk that were pretending to be expensive furniture, yet it was still one of the premier suites with the additional space to justify the high price that the hotel undoubtedly charged. There was a small smudge on the bottom left edge of the mirror over the dresser, but Don was willing to bet that it was left by the housekeeper and not the kidnappers.

There were signs that this was the room: the bed covers were dented. Nothing so much as rumpled—no one had taken a cat nap—but a body had been deposited onto the mattress, on top of the gold brocaded pattern, and then had been lifted off again. There was nothing to suggest that anyone had made use of the chairs in the corner, and the firm padding wouldn't lend itself to the same sort of curves as the bed linens. No ashes; in fact, no ashtray. This was a non-smoking room. He sniffed the air, and inhaled the merest molecules of something sickly sweet. A set up like this? Don was willing to bet that the victims had been given something to keep them quiet, something that would last a bit longer than whatever had been administered in the salon.

Two objects sitting on the desk confirmed that this was the target room: two cell phones, one of which looked like the model that Charlie favored. Both cells were black top of the line tech-lover devices, and both shared one highly disturbing feature: both had been smashed. The message was clear; communication from Professor Eppes was not going to happen.

Don let his gaze wander over to the window, and there he saw the marks that confirmed his working hypothesis: scratch marks in the paint on the sill, almost identical to the ones one story below. The kidnappers had hoisted Charlie up with a rope into this room, drugged him, and carried him out in a matter of moments.  
All very carefully and professionally planned. That meant that they knew who they were after, and that murder wasn't the goal. That was the good news.

The bad news was scary. Charlie, with his various awards and honors, was not destitute by any means but neither was he a target for someone with a get-rich-quick scheme. No, this had to have been put together by someone who wanted Charlie for his position and since people usually didn't abduct math professors for the purpose of teaching overly bright kindergarteners, Don was willing to admit that it had something to do with Charlie's work with government agencies, one of whom was well represented in this room.

That, however, didn't make sense. Charlie had done plenty of work for Don, but none of those cases would lead anyone to think of kidnapping Charlie. If anything, they'd be more in line with a good old-fashioned assassination for services rendered, and anyone with an ax to grind would be aiming first for Don himself. Charlie was usually somewhat removed from the take down of the perps.

Next link in the chain: Charlie also had done work for the NSA, and a couple of times for both NASA and the Federal Reserve. Bank CEOs? Maybe, but those guys were more likely to whine to Congress and beg for bonuses, and Don highly doubted that this crime had been carried out by little green men from Mars.

That left the NSA.

Fornell read his mind. "I'll get my contacts working on it," he offered grimly. "It fits. Missing code, missing code-breaker."

Yeah. It fit. It fit only too damn well. "Tell Forensics to hustle." Don forced the words forth. It was tough to talk. _It's Charlie! It's Charlie!_

He tamped down his emotions; they'd interfere with his ability to work, and right now he needed every sense working overtime. He scanned the room, trying to read the story printed there.

The bed linens—yeah, that's where Charlie had been dumped. The lines on the cover were just slightly larger than his brother's outline. But there were lines in the carpet, waves of pile pushed this way and that—second body. That second body, he'd assumed, was the Penfield imitator. Why would they dump their own man on the ground?

Unless they thought that the impersonator was the real thing, which meant that someone else had spiked the drinks to take out an entire room of geniuses. The fact that the second cell had been smashed along with Charlie's lent credence to that theory.

"I want to question the hotel staff—" he started to say when something caught his eye. It was brown, it was square, and it was almost hidden underneath the dust ruffle on the side of the chair along the edge of where the lines in the carpet lay. Don went on point. Using a pen to prevent getting any of his own fingerprints on the object, he pushed at it until he got it free from its hiding place.

It was a wallet, worn brown leather uppermost, a second more slender leather case underneath it. Don nudged at them with his pen, dragging the two pieces out from underneath the ruffle. He slid the point under the fold of the second leather case, flipping it open. A gold badge greeted him, and he read the department that it belonged to. "NCIS." He glanced up at the other three. "What the hell is an NCIS badge doing at the crime scene?"

"Open the wallet," Fornell urged him. "Who does it belong to?"

Don performed the same operation on the wallet, stretching the leather out to its full extent. A driver's license greeted him, showing a Caucasian male, light brown hair, unremarkable features. He bent down to read the name. "Timothy McGee."

Fornell jerked. "You sure? McGee?"

"Yeah. The name mean something to you, Fornell?"

"Yeah, it means something to me, Eppes. You ever hear of a guy by the name of Gibbs?"

"No. Who is he?"

"He's the best agent that NCIS has, and the biggest pain in my ass."

* * *

 _Stumble along in the dark. Fall to the ground, knees weak, stomach involuntarily emptying itself._

Hangover.

Still night. Everything was dark. Charlie couldn't see a thing around him. There were only two things that he could distinguish: that he was staggering along uneven ground, and that Don's arm was supporting him.

What had happened? Charlie had never had a hangover like this. And in front of a group of fellow academicians, his peers? That was beyond belief—  
Not Don. It wasn't Don whose hand was gripping him, keeping him moving. And it wasn't night, either—it was a blindfold. Icy fear swept through his veins.

It all came back in a rush: the lecture. The post-lecture discussion. Waiting for Penfield to walk into the salon, because then the real debate would begin, and Charlie had already prepared a whole bunch of pithy comments based on Penfield's last three articles that he was eager to use. Then…Charlie had fallen asleep. They'd _all_ fallen asleep.

The probability that every one of the mathematicians in the salon would fall asleep after a highly stimulating lecture without the benefit of a nearby bed was so remote as to be unthinkable. No, wait; it was after _Penfield's_ lecture. Boredom needed to be factored into the equation. Charlie irritably revised his estimate upward, and decided that the difference still wouldn't achieve statistical significance. That just didn't happen without some sort of activity that was more in keeping with Don's lifestyle than Charlie's.

All of which meant that he was in serious trouble.

He stumbled again, and the strong hand hoisted him up. A step, Charlie determined, a single step upward, into some sort of building. He heard a mumble from behind him, and realized that there was someone else in a similar situation as himself, someone feeling just as bad as he and who had stumbled over the same step to enter the same place. Who was it? A reasonable supposition was that it was someone else from the salon, but from there Charlie had no idea. There were many people present who were brilliant in the field of mathematics, but once again it came back to the reality of how math was perceived in the world: a useful tool, and that was about it. Not like physics: atomic bombs, and others things that went boom. Not like chemistry: mad scientists with miracle potions and drugs. Not even biology and medicine, to weaponize the bacteria of choice. Why the heck had these people gone after _mathematicians?_

He was about to find out. His knees gave out once again, only this time the hand pushed him onto something soft, something sofa-like. His grunt was muffled into the gag in his mouth, but the hand then relieved him of that burden by ripping the duct tape off of his skin.

The scream of pain left him before Charlie even realized it, and he suddenly understood what Don had been talking about a few months ago after an undercover case. Duct tape, removed swiftly and without mercy, hurt like hell. A second screech, echo-located somewhere off to his right, suggested that his fellow math victim had suffered the same fate.

The blindfold was next. Charlie blinked, trying to see through the tears of pain. He was in a large drawing room, with elegant upholstered furniture all around. He himself was sprawled over a green brocade sofa, warm mahogany wooden feet sticking out for support to keep the brocade off of the beige plush carpet. He glanced automatically toward the windows, hoping to gain some thoughts as to where he was or even what time it was, but heavy velvet drapes prevented the passage of photons or information.

There were three men and a woman, all of whom were watching Charlie and his fellow victim. Charlie recognized none of them, but suspected the men, at least, of being responsible for his abduction. They each had the hard look of men who were well accustomed to performing reprehensible deeds as a matter of course, and receiving premium pay for such actions. They were the hired help, but they were upper level hired help.

The woman was different. She was the one doing the hiring. She was no spring chicken, but the signs of aging had been systematically purged through the judicious application of time and money and surgery. Every hair was lacquered into place until nothing moved unless she gave it permission. Charlie guessed that she was the one who had arranged for the abduction.

Charlie's fellow victim cleared his throat, and Charlie automatically glanced at him. Who was the fellow? Charlie didn't recognize him, and he knew by sight just about everyone who was anyone in the field of theoretical math. The man was taller than either himself or Don, with light brown hair slicked back. He had the same look as many of Charlie's own colleagues, the look that said searching for elucidation was a valid way to conduct one's life, and that the search could be conducted in a reasonably intellectual fashion.

There the similarity ended. Charlie was well aware that many of Charlie's fellow professors had a somewhat head in the clouds approach to living—Charlie, of course, was far better grounded, no matter what either Don or his father said!—but this man seemed far more practical than most. Even flopped over the easy chair, the limbs still seemed more composed than Charlie's own.

The woman interrupted Charlie's musings. She rose from her chair, standing over him. "Professor Eppes. Professor Penfield. Welcome to your new digs."

Penfield? What was she talking about? That man wasn't—Charlie caught the look the man gave him. There was nothing there, not a hint that the man wasn't Marshall Penfield. If Charlie hadn't verbally sparred with the man during both undergraduate and graduate years and beyond, he could easily have believed that the angry visage across the room belonged to his nemesis.

Play it cool. Was the man undercover? Don didn't talk much about those sorts of things, but this could be one of them. Charlie was well aware that his own brain wasn't functioning particularly well, still trying to swim up out of a drug-induced fog, and elected on the spot to keep quiet until he had the opportunity to clear things up. The wrong thing said at the wrong time could easily end up with a dead mathematician, and he wasn't talking about the imposter on the easy chair.

Charlie cleared his throat, but nothing came out.

The other man managed the process better. "What do you want with us?" A simple question, evoking so many emotions; Charlie found himself holding his breath.

The woman nodded. "Quite simply, Dr. Penfield: you have a new employer."

Charlie tried to match the other man's composure. "You?" It would have come out better, Charlie decided unhappily, if his voice hadn't squeaked.

She spared him a pitying look. "Yes, Dr. Eppes, that would be correct. You may refer to me as Ms. Marple."

'Dr. Penfield' drew the attention back to himself. "What if we don't want to work for you?"

"I think you'll find the terms of employment far better than the alternative, Dr. Penfield."

"And that alternative being—?" 'Penfield' lifted one eyebrow in a way that reminded Charlie of the real Marshall Penfield, with that mildly supercilious air, as though he considered himself superior to everyone—including Charlie himself.

Return smile. "We will kill you."

"Oh." 'Penfield' took in a short breath, and paled. "Oh, I see."

Charlie tried again. "What do you want us to do?"

"The same thing that the NSA has asked you to do: encryption work. You will work here, in this house. You will not leave this house. You will not attempt to contact anyone. You will decipher any message that we give to you, without complaint and without stopping. In return, you will be well-treated. You will be fed and sheltered."

"But we can't leave." 'Penfield' took care of the responses.

"Just so. Any attempt to contact anyone outside of this house will be punished swiftly and thoroughly. Do I make myself clear?"

"But we have to—" Charlie started to say.

'Penfield' overrode him. He rose from his chair, an expression of anger on his face. "This is intolerable! I have classes to teach! You can't simply abduct—"

It happened so fast that Charlie almost missed it. Ms. Marple made a small gesture to her men.

There was a flurry of fists as the three men descended onto 'Professor Penfield'. A short series of thuds, interspersed with cries, emerged from the pile-up. "Stop! Stop! I'll do it!" he cried out.

"Stop it! You're killing him!" Charlie yelled, starting to get up himself.

"Do not interfere, Dr. Eppes," she snapped, holding him in place with a single upraised finger. "Not unless you wish the same treatment."

***

It wasn't hard to tell that the team from NCIS that Fornell called earlier had arrived at the hotel. There was no siren, but the screeching tires could be heard even inside where Don and his own people were milling around. Likewise, it wasn't hard to pick out the three agents steaming across the hotel lobby toward the salon where the math debate had come to a snoring halt.

Don studied the trio during the few seconds he was given before their arrival. Their leader was a silver-haired man, but that was the only apparent sign of age. He moved like an athlete—not that Don was surprised, not for a Federal field agent—and possessed long legs that ate up the distance between the front lobby and their destination where the FBI waited for them. The other man of the group was just as tall, with a tailored look that said the man cared thoroughly about the image that he presented to the world. Don tightened his lips; a dilettante, playing at being a cop? Took a job that gave him an excuse to spend time working out and admiring himself? Don didn't have time for this sort of nonsense, and nor did he have time to waste coddling the smaller woman stretching her legs to keep up with her tall companions. Attractive enough, sure, but at the moment Don was more concerned with their ability to find a certain world class mathematician. If he needed her to go undercover, he would ask, but right now he needed brain power and muscles. He sure hoped she could contribute the former, because the latter wasn't likely. Not with those slender curves.

Fornell recognized them, and moved in on the introduction. "Gibbs. Eppes, an FBI SAC for L.A. He's here doing a lecture."

"Yeah?" There was a world of interrogation in the single word, something along the lines of _what the hell is an ivory tower lecturer doing out where he could get hurt, because he sure can't help the investigation._

"Eppes's brother is one of the kidnap victims, Jethro," Fornell said with a faint air of reproof.

Don didn't have time for a turf war. "What was your man doing here?" he asked evenly, trying to keep his own temper under control. "You have an undercover going down?"

"Not me, Eppes. Your brother? He something special?"

"Yeah." Don chose to drop a few names—letters, actually. Initials. "Top notch mathematician. He's done a fair amount of work for the NSA, the FBI, the Pentagon; places like that." He let the words drop into the empty air.

The NCIS woman cocked her head. "Your brother is Professor Charles Eppes?"

Brains, then. Don nodded. "That's him."

She had an accent. Don wasn't quite able to place it, wondered what someone who wasn't an American citizen was doing in an NCIS unit. She turned to Gibbs. "Dr. Eppes is well-known to us. His work is greatly admired." She paused, thinking. "Gibbs, there could be a connection. Dr. Charles Eppes is one of the premier names in crypto-analysis."

Okay, she got another point for flattery, but that didn't help to find Charlie. Don moved on. "What connection?" He turned to stare at Fornell. "Is this the missing message thing that half the agents in town were talking about earlier?"

"It could be," Gibbs forestalled Fornell. "We picked up a call a couple of hours earlier. One of the low levels was calling some potential buyers, trying to arrange an auction."

"Bring him in," Don ordered. "Let's question him."

Gibbs shook his head. "Can't, Agent Eppes."

"Why the hell not?"

"He's dead."

***

McGee saw it coming, saw Professor Eppes start to agitate his new employer.

The woman—Ms. Marple, she stylized herself—had just finished explaining their new conditions of employment. "Just so. Any attempt to contact anyone outside of this house will be punished swiftly and thoroughly. Do I make myself clear?"

"But we have to—" Professor Eppes started to say, raising his voice.

'Penfield' quickly overrode him. McGee rose from his chair, placing an expression of anger on his face. "This is intolerable! I have classes to teach! You can't simply abduct—"

It worked. The group focused their displeasure on him, with their fists.

The first set of knuckles smashed into his mouth, and McGee concentrated on acting like a milquetoast college professor. He cried out, trying to back away, finding that it didn't take much acting ability to make it sound real.

They didn't let him escape his punishment. One grabbed his arms, and the other two rained blows onto whatever was closest.

That didn't matter. He had diverted them from delivering this beating to Dr. Eppes, prevented them from possibly permanently damaging the mind of one of the world's greats. Special Agent Timothy McGee would receive thanks for this from the academic and political worlds, if he lived through this slice of life.

***

Don let himself be mollified by the speed and skill that the NCIS team showed in processing the scene. They knew their business, that was clear. The man—DiNozzo was his name—snapped pictures of every corner of the room, and the woman had pulled on latex gloves to track down every stray hair that might lead them to the kidnappers.

Gibbs examined the wallet with the gold shield, using his own gloves to avoid leaving prints. "That's McGee's," he confirmed.

Sinclair narrowed his eyes. "What was your man doing here?"

"Up here, in this room, apparently getting himself kidnapped." The NCIS team leader refused to allow himself to be ruffled. "Downstairs, in the conference room, attending a lecture on math."

"He was attending one of Charlie's lectures?" Colby's voice held more than a smidgeon of disbelief.

"Yeah. Pitiful, isn't it?" DiNozzo asked, snapping another shot. "Friday night, and all McGeek can do is get himself snatched. Although he did say he was meeting a woman," he added thoughtfully. "Someone he met online." The sarcastic humor was ruined by the undertone of worry.

Ziva bagged a sliver of glass that she found on the table in the corner of the room, carefully sealing the plastic so that the tiny shard couldn't escape. "Special Agent McGee has expertise in computer science," she explained. "He was looking forward to the intellectual stimulation."

"Right up Charlie's alley," Sinclair mused, almost to himself. "But what was he doing downstairs, in the salon? I thought only an invited few would be there. Would your man be of that caliber, to be invited?"

Gibbs heard that, and shook his head. "McGee is good, don't doubt that," he equivocated, "but he stays out of the limelight."

"Besides," Ziva added, "this was a lecture on mathematics, not computer science."

"There's a difference?" Colby asked.

"A big difference," Ziva assured him.

"What is it?"

"Got a couple years?" DiNozzo put in, "'cause it'll take that long for your guy and ours to explain it to you."

Colby grimaced. "I can believe that. I've heard some pretty wild math fights. Never knew that math guys could be so ferocious until I met Charlie."

Gibbs changed the subject. "Anybody talk to the help?"

"It was the doorman," Fornell told him. "He was one of them, but didn't know what he was doing. Didn't see anything."

"He see McGee walk in?"

Fornell blinked. "He must have."

"Really? He was supposed to have let that other math guy in, named of Penfield." Gibbs smelled blood. "I think I'll have a little talk with him."

***

"But, mom, I don't wanna go to school."

It must have been that Toby West kid. Him and all his friends. They caught him—again—and took his lunch money and his homework. Timmy had been able to hide the bruises from his parents, 'cause telling on Toby would just make Timmy look like a wimp. It would also get Toby in trouble in school, and that would mean…

 _Crap._

Reality crashed over him with all the delicacy of an ice shelf breaking free from the Antarctic. He wasn't ten years old again, trying to survive elementary school as a budding geek. It wasn't anyone as impotent as Toby West—he'd heard that Toby had done time for selling drugs, right after he got out of high school. Served him right—and these bruises were a sight worse than anything Toby had ever doled out. No, at the moment he was lying on something soft with every inch of him trying to decide whether 'sore' could be the correct adjective or whether they'd be more accurate with 'excruciating discomfort'. At least it wasn't 'agony', he decided.

"Are you all right?"

McGee swallowed—even that hurt. "Yeah," he croaked. He coughed, wincing, and tried again. "Yeah," he repeated, morbidly pleased that this time it sounded like an actual word. "Yeah, it wasn't too bad," he said, lying through his teeth.

"Let me help you sit up." Strong hands slid under his shoulders, helping McGee to move into a sitting position, pushing soft pillows behind his back for support.

McGee let his head fall back against the cushioning, discovering that he had been deposited onto one of the sofas in the living room of the house that they'd been stashed in.

It wasn't as bad as he'd feared. This wasn't some sort of dirty safe house, cockroaches demanding equal time from the rats and shards of pizza crusts hanging out from dilapidated cardboard boxes. The place looked livable; in fact, it looked almost as inviting as McGee's own place. No, actually, it looked better because someone had gotten around to dusting the place, something that McGee had been putting off in favor of solving the last case and avoiding the boss's head-whacks.

"Thanks."

McGee blinked. "You're welcome." The words emerged automatically, and he suddenly realized who he was speaking to. "Uh, Professor Eppes…"

"We know who I am," Charlie said dryly, "so shall we establish who you are? Trust me on this: I know Marshall Penfield on a first name basis."

"Yes, well…" McGee let the words trail off, trying to pull together his thoughts. "I, uh, I picked up Professor Penfield's ID badge. It must have fallen off, and he didn't realize it. I went to return it, and…" More trailing words.

Charlie nodded, considering. "I can see how that could have happened. You don't really look alike, but those photos are pretty blurry."

McGee breathed a sigh of relief. "You believe me."

Charlie dashed his hopes. "Let's just say that I don't have any reason not to, as of yet. What were you doing in a private discussion?"

McGee had always believed that honesty was the best policy. "I was here to hear your lecture," he said simply. "The rest…well, it just happened."

"Right." Charlie sat back in the over-stuffed chair facing him. "So, who are you?"

"Tim McGee," McGee told him.

"That's a start."

McGee's smile needed help. "Special Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS."

"NCIS?" It was Charlie's turn to blink. "As in Naval Criminal—?"

"—Investigations Unit, yes," McGee finished up for him, briefly amazed that someone had actually heard of the department before remembering for whom Professor Eppes had worked.

"Special Agent," Charlie mused. "Field agent?"

McGee couldn't blame the math professor for the doubting note in his voice. It wasn't as though Charles Eppes, one of the top mathematicians in the world if not the century, was seeing one Special Agent Timothy McGee at his best. Staring at Dr. Eppes, that master's degree from MIT that so impressed DiNozzo (even if the man wouldn't admit it) and that McGee had worked so hard for seemed something less than the achievement that it was. "Yes."

"All right." Charlie paused, thinking. "Well, you've carried off the fake so far, and I don't see any benefit to admitting your real identity."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Do you have a plan to get us out of this? Alive would be preferable."

McGee winced, and it wasn't all from the bruises. He briefly considered lying. "No. You?"

"They want us to decipher a coded message," Charlie told him. "In fact, it's their new business, with Penfield and I as their hired help at rock bottom consulting fees."

The plot started to become clear to his battered wits. "They kidnapped us, intending to keep us working for them. Decryption analysts, for whoever can pay but doesn't have the backing of a legitimate government." McGee forced his befuddled mind to work. "Not a bad scheme. There would be a market for something like that, assuming that they can get us to cooperate."

Charlie indicated the darkening bruise that threatened to close McGee's eye altogether. "They've made a good start."

McGee touched the spot, and hastily pulled his hand away. "Yeah." He turned his attention to his new-found fellow employee. "Have they hurt you?"

"No," Charlie told him. "They seem to think that I'd be impressed with what they did to you. I was," he added grimly. "I'm going to do my best to avoid ending up in the same condition. Thanks, by the way. I realized too late what we had gotten into. I owe you one. It should have been me lying on the sofa with all the bruises. They intended to make an example of one of us, and I was walking right into their trap."

"Dr. Eppes," McGee told him with all sincerity, "you are one of the greatest minds in the world. I couldn't allow you to be hurt."

Charlie flushed, embarrassed, and hurried on. "Yes, well, let's see if we can't avoid that for both of us from here on." He changed the subject. "They've handed me the first message that they want deciphered. It'll take a while, especially with the dinky little computers they've allowed, but I can do it. What we need to do is teach you some phrases to parrot back at me, so we can make it look like you really are Marshall Penfield. Let's start with—"

"I'm going to assume that we won't have anything as simple as substitutions or blocks," McGee interrupted. "Multiple keys? Public and concealed?"

Charlie's face took on a pleased expression. "They teach ciphering techniques in NCIS school?"

"Not exactly. I did a little work in it during my undergraduate years, and more later on, at MIT."

Bigger grin. "Ever run across a guy by the name of Nadir Samrahi?"

McGee's jaw caught itself in the nick of time to prevent hitting the floor. "Uh, you mean, Professor Sammy? He was doing work on adapting the asynchronous deciphering algorithms for use directly on the Linux platform, without needing to go through any intermediaries."

"Was he successful?"

McGee looked blank. "I don't know. I graduated and moved on, and got involved with other types of work. I never heard anything more." The blank look extended itself. "I would have thought that I would have. Heard, I mean. I went straight to work for NCIS, doing work in cyber-crime, and while it wasn't directly involved, I would have thought—"

"He gave it up as a bad job," Charlie interrupted. "Good idea, but failed in execution. Sammy found that there were easier ways to accomplish the same thing." He nodded. "We can pull this off. Penfield always hated the part about transferring the work onto the computer for cranking out the calculations, but hopefully our friends outside this room won't know that. I'll put the algorithms onto a white board—" he looked around for the missing piece of furniture and corrected himself, "onto paper and you'll handle writing code."

"In the mean time," McGee agreed, "we can watch for a way to escape."

***

"Well, duh." Abby stared at the tiny sliver of glass bagged in transparent plastic. "Of _course_ I can figure out what the liquid is. Put it over there," she directed DiNozzo, "onto the bench. I'll get to it after I finishing running the slug you guys brought me from earlier. I'm only one person, you know."

Abby Scuitto was not like any other forensics rat that Don Eppes had ever seen, and he'd seen his share of them including the over the top strange ones. He really hoped that she was competent, and right now he likewise hoped that appearances were deceiving. Black hair, pale skin, and goth-child awkwardness didn't usually go hand and hand with technical expertise. Even Larry Fleinhardt, with all of his idiosyncrasies, could pass for normal under average circumstances.

Sure, the equipment was here, machines with lights blinking like a Christmas tree display on Black Friday after Thanksgiving, but did this chick know how to use them? Don had been in Larry's physics lab on a few occasions and this looked something like it, but Larry tended to dance from machine to machine. Even Charlie, when he performed his demonstrations for his classes, simply dove onto his devices like a drowning man onto a life preserver. This chick merely looked distracted—or was it overwhelmed? A quick glance at Colby said that his team mate shared his concern. _I've got a missing brother. I don't have time for playing nice._

The NCIS team, in the persons of Special Agent DiNozzo and Officer David, didn't seem to be bothered. Don supposed that it could be because they were so used to the lack of evidence to build a case that they didn't even realize that there would be a difference. This was, after all, NCIS. Great guys, but with a budget less than ten percent of what the FBI commanded and the limited manpower that it allowed. Still, it was what they had to work with, and this NCIS team would have a lot of motivation since it was their man who had been snatched along with Charlie. _I hope they liked the guy, and don't want to see him go down._

DiNozzo tossed an uneasy glance toward Don, as if he'd read the senior FBI agent's thoughts. "Abby, uh, can you, like run things together? Simultaneously? This one's a rush job."

"Aren't they all?" Goth-child took the bag from DiNozzo's hand and lifted it up into the air to stare at it. "Not much there. It'll take a while. I'll need to find a good diluent to pry it off of the glass—this is from an ampule, right?—and once I get it off the glass, then I can run it through the mass spec."

"Uh, Abbs?" Another almost furtive look, not quite meeting Don's eyes and not meeting his partner's eyes either. "Abby, Gibbs needs this fast."

 _What the hell was this goof-ball thinking? Tell the damn lab rat to get her ass off of her bench and run the damn tests!_

"Tony, you can't rush this stuff." Abby flounced over to one of her 'toys'. "Tell Gibbs that he'll have the evidence when it's ready. He knows that."

"Abby…" the Mossad officer seemed equally as uneasy as her American partner.

"What?" The Goth-child's sentence started out annoyed—and mutated. Abby turned around and frowned. "Ziva, what's going on?" She scanned the group, looking at individuals. "Tony, why does Gibbs need this fast?" She catalogued each of the persons in her lab, noting which ones she knew and didn't know—and who wasn't there. "Tony, where's McGee? He's with Gibbs, right? Interrogation?"

 _Crap. She doesn't know._

"Abby…" Ziva let the word float away, not certain of what to say next.

The lab rat focused on Don as the unknown and most likely to tell her what she dreaded. "What's going on here, Mr. FBI guy? Where's McGee?"

Clearly used to getting coddled. Don didn't have time for this. "Your man and my consultant were kidnapped from a math lecture," he told her curtly. He indicated the shard of amber glass that she held in her hand, still securely bagged. "That liquid may give us a clue as to how it was done."

"And where they're holding McGee, Abby," Ziva added gently.

Tears filled big brown eyes, and Don felt like a heel. It didn't matter whether or not this kid knew what she was doing in a lab; she cared about her team and was genuinely upset that Gibbs's man was among the missing. Don didn't have to come down that hard—well, maybe he did. He needed evidence, and he needed it now.

Goth-child turned back to DiNozzo. "Tony?"

"We'll get him back, Abbs," DiNozzo promised earnestly. He steered her toward the bagged shard of glass ampule. "We think this may have been used, might have been something to keep the victims quiet. Figure it out, and it will give us a lead."

"You'll have it," Abby promised, and Don noticed those tears threatening to leak down her cheeks. She turned to her army of machines, new steel in her spine. "You heard him, men! Get to work!"

 _I hope that Gibbs is better at interrogation than what I'm seeing here._ Don exchanged glances with Colby, already wondering how to best toss this town that they were visiting. They didn't know the streets here, or the local underground, or who might have a lead on who had kidnapped Charlie and the NCIS guy.

On the other hand, the NCIS people didn't seem to be much better off.

Not much of a consolation.

* * *

The doorman wasn't much to look at, and was even less of a pleasant sight after sitting alone in Interrogation Room One for almost an hour. The wait was getting to him, that Gibbs could easily tell. The hair had gone lanky with sweat, and the collar had been pulled open by nervous fingers, allowing a few scant and dark chest curls to seep up over the top button. The man's eyes darted continually around the bare room, trying to find answers written on the empty walls. It wasn't working.

Gibbs chose his moment to enter. Timing was everything; the decision of a suspect to spill his guts would be made in a split second and that second couldn't be rushed nor delayed. Gibbs sauntered in, hiding his own level of anxiety, noting that the suspect failed to regard his captor with a faint air of supercilious superiority that seemed to mark the really difficult culprits. Good; that meant that this one would crack fairly easily. The bad part was that anyone who cracked easily usually didn't have much to offer in the way of evidence or clues. Gibbs would rather have had a more difficult time.

Still, this would be a performance. One of the FBI people, the one named Sinclair, was outside of the room, watching him work. Gibbs didn't particularly like it but didn't have much of a choice, not if he wanted Fornell to play ball. Fornell was FBI, and had drafted the out of town talent. To be honest, they had as much at stake as Gibbs, since the consultant guy was the brother of the lead L.A. guy, but at the moment that wasn't helping Gibbs's mood. Gibbs was damn good, but that guy outside Interrogation Room One would be judging his every move and Gibbs wasn't in the mood for a critique.

"Don't bother getting up," he told the doorman, ignoring the fact that the man hadn't tried. Not the point; Gibbs simply wanted the man off guard, wondering what a guilty person was supposed to do at a time like this. Gibbs perused the information in a manila file that Ziva had just pulled off the computer for him. "Jackson Darby, of 1015 Wilding Way. Well, Jackson Darby of 1015 Wilding Way, you are in a hell of a lot of trouble." He deliberately kept his tone mild, knowing that it would cut far deeper than any angry shouting.

"I—I don't know what you're talking about," Darby stammered. More sweat popped out to join the first droplets. "I didn't do anything!" The last line was almost a wail.

"No?" Gibbs pretended to read from the file. "How does 'treason' sound?" He leaned in from behind to whisper in the man's ear, "they execute people who threaten national security."

Which was stretching the truth, since Gibbs wasn't even certain that he could charge this man with anything much besides idiocy, but that wasn't the point. He wanted visions of getting strapped down to a gurney with a syringe being inserted into a vein to float through this man's head.

The doorman tried to summon a spine. "I want a lawyer," he squeaked, the effect he was going for ruined by his vocal cords' lack of cooperation. The basso emerged as a cracking falsetto. He cleared his throat, and tried again. "A lawyer. I'm entitled."

"Suit yourself," Gibbs shrugged. "Of course, any offer I have goes away once your mouthpiece hits the door." _Let's impress the poor slob with language straight from The Sopranos. Any real crook would be laughing hysterically by now._

Darby gulped.

"Besides, I haven't yet charged you with anything. Only guilty people start screaming for a lawyer." Gibbs continued to 'study' the file. "Of course, there's always the possibility that the only thing you're guilty of is stupidity." He let the words hang there in the breeze, dangling and waiting.

Another hard swallow. "What offer?"

Gibbs forced himself to remain calm. "The one where you tell me what I want to know, and you go home to sleep in your own bed tonight." He shrugged once more, and pretended to consider the prospect. "That's assuming that an enemy sniper doesn't plug you as you walk out through the front door of this building." _Like that would happen._

"Sniper?" Working on high C. "I—I didn't…You can protect me?"

"Your best protection is to tell me everything you know," Gibbs assured him. "They won't touch you after that; there would be no point. That would only get them into more trouble. Nobody is stupid enough to risk a murder conviction without a really good reason, which you get rid of by telling me everything." Of course, Gibbs and the others didn't know who 'they' were, but bringing up the concept of a revenge killing that wasn't about to happen wouldn't hurt the 'crack the suspect' scenario going on.

"Murder." The doorman's hands were trembling. Not the proper word, Gibbs decided cynically. Not trembling; shaking. Not even salt shaker type shaking, but earthquake cracking wide open to rival the Grand Canyon.

Good.

"I only saw one of them," the doorman whimpered. "He gave me a thousand bucks to tell him when two certain guys had gone into the room, and then to stand there and not let anyone else in. Please, mister, I was desperate! I've been out of work for three months! I needed the money, and they just told me to do what my boss told me to do anyway. Nobody was supposed to get hurt!"

"Really?" Gibbs finally seated himself across the table from Darby. "Two prominent scholars were kidnapped, two men who work at some of the highest levels in government." It sounded good. "Take it from the top. Who approached you?"

There wasn't much the Darby could tell him. Someone had called him on his cell phone, promised to give him money to make a call when Professors Eppes and Penfield entered the salon that Darby had been assigned to monitor. Gibbs passed out the information immediately, knowing that the phone that had called Darby would turn out to be a burn phone, a dead end. Darby himself had thought the whole thing to be a prank—until he found five hundred dollars in an unmarked white envelope in his locker. It was the half up front that he'd been promised.

That made it a hell of lot more real. The task wasn't hard; people had identified themselves according to a list that the manager had given him. Dr. Eppes was on that list, and so was Dr. Penfield. McGee was not; not that Gibbs had expected him to get in. McGee was certainly good at his job, but joining into a private soiree for math geniuses was above his pay grade. What was the answer there?

Whatever it was, was not immediately forthcoming. Four more men had approached as a group, and had handed Darby another envelope. Gibbs had already confiscated it and handed it over to Abby for prints. Not that he expected there to be any, but it was standard procedure and people sometimes got careless. Gibbs wasn't about to turn down any offered lucky breaks.

Darby had recognized the type of envelope, and accepted it. The four men hadn't said anything, had just entered the room and shut the door behind them. That was that; nothing more. There were no sounds, nothing to indicate that anything was out of the ordinary. The only thing that Darby could actually say was that he let in four men in business suits but without conference ID cards that allowed them legitimate access. Not such a big crime, and the pay had been good.

Not good enough. Gibbs tossed a picture of Dr. Charles Eppes onto the table in front of the doorman. "Recognize him?"

"Uh…he's one of the people that I was supposed to watch for? Penfield? Eppes?" Darby was clearly rattled.

"Professor Charles Eppes," Gibbs told him sternly. "Probably gonna get a Nobel Prize before he's through with his career. That's assuming that your actions haven't gotten him killed. How about this one?" He slid a picture of McGee across the table.

"That's the other one," Darby said immediately. "If the first guy is that Eppes, then this one was Penfield. I saw him come in, then I closed the door."

"How did you know that he was Dr. Penfield?" This might be part of the answer. Gibbs held his breath.

Darby frowned. "He had an ID card on him. I passed him through, like they told me. Check the ID against the list, and let 'em in. Mister, I just wanted this thing to be over with! I was scared, 'cause it was getting real!" Darby turned panic-stricken eyes upon Gibbs. "They're gonna kill me?"

"Not if I have anything to do with it," Gibbs reassured him, knowing that it was only the truth. Chances of anyone going after this poor dupe ranged between 'slim' and 'none'. He pulled one more photo out of the manila folder. "And this man?"

Darby recognized the face immediately. "This is the guy who was hassling me about going into the salon. He didn't have no ID, so I wouldn't let him go inside. He got mad, and went off to talk to the concierge. Then you guys showed up, and it hit the fan."

There wasn't much more to get from this guy. Gibbs knew it, and the FBI agent outside the one-way glass knew it. Gibbs pulled the photos back and slid them into the manila folder, McGee's face staring up at him. Gibbs resolutely closed the manila cover over it, shoving emotions and fear down to where it wouldn't interfere. "You're going to meet with a sketch artist, see if you can give us some clues about these men that you worked with."

"You're…you're not gonna lock me up?"

"Do I need to?" Gibbs made his voice deep and foreboding with only a minimum of effort. "You planning on leaving town?"

Darby gulped. That had been exactly what he had been planning to do: take the money and find a hole to crawl into until everyone had forgotten that he existed.

Gibbs read his mind. "Wait here," he told the doorman. "Somebody will come get you."

Gibbs walked out through the door, pausing to pick up the FBI guy—Sinclair, was his name—and headed off toward the bullpen. "Not much this guy can tell us. Anything to add? Anything you picked up from the interrogation?"

"Just one thing." Sinclair kept walking.

Gibbs halted on a dime. "What?" What did this FBI guy think that he'd picked up and Gibbs hadn't?

Not even a ghost of a smile. "There is no Nobel Prize for math."

***

"Asynchronous, without a doubt," Professor Eppes said, scratching on a pad of paper, his pencil worn down to a nubbin.

"Asynchronous," Penfield-McGee agreed.

"Try the Ben-Azariah pretension. Let's see if we can get it to open up."

"Already?" the fake Penfield asked. "Shouldn't we try the Glovcheskian approach first?"

Professor Eppes halted, and stared at McGee. "You're right. Glovcheski, it is."

McGee took a deep breath. _Message received._ Professor Eppes, it was clear, would dive headlong into any puzzle no matter what the circumstances. Working at anything less than warp ten was categorically impossible for the man, as was paying attention to extraneous details such as working for an organization that had just kidnapped them.

Another one of those details, McGee was almost certain, was that they were being watched or at least listened to, although not all the time. If that had been the case, then McGee would already be dead after the discussion that he and Dr. Eppes had had as to McGee's real identity and how he came to take Dr. Penfield's place. According to Dr. Eppes, that was fortunate for both Eppes and Penfield; Dr. Eppes seemed to think that Dr. Penfield would have reacted in such a way that he'd get a great deal more damaged than Special Agent McGee already had. Dr. Eppes, though, believed that he himself would have behaved far more circumspectly since he had had the advantage of exposure to FBI methods through both his work and his brother. Dr. Eppes also had had several years of working with such agencies as the NSA, among others, which surely gave him a superior comprehension of the workings of the intelligence community.

McGee, remembering the previous events a bit differently, declined to argue.

All of which led to the current discussion: whenever Eppes seemed to be too prepared to rush forth with an answer to the code for their captors, 'Glovcheski' was the term that they had prepared between them to reel the professor back into reality.

It was a delicate balancing act: Special Agent McGee really wanted to know the contents of the coded message that they were working on. Any code for which people went to these lengths to get deciphered had to be something that would cause world leaders to tremble, which meant that McGee wanted to know what it was so that he could do something constructive with it. That was also the problem: 'constructive' didn't include letting their captors know the message, and that was going to be somewhat problematic. McGee snorted; let their captors get one whiff that the code had been cracked, and McGee and Eppes would be lucky not to be cracked themselves. No, the best way to handle this was to proceed as slowly with the deciphering process as possible. If they didn't know what the message said, their captors couldn't get it out of them.

Not too slowly, though; if 'Ms. Marple' thought that her new employees were dawdling, McGee was certain that neither one would like the consequences. His ribs ached irritably, reminding him that he had already had a taste of her displeasure and that he really shouldn't request a second helping if at all possible.

All of which meant that the procedure for the two captives was to dawdle at the code-breaking while searching for a way to escape. McGee automatically glanced around; if it came down to it, he'd settle for getting only Professor Eppes out of here. McGee had no desire for a premature death, but he had to face reality: Eppes was the one who could decipher the code and McGee could not. Eppes had been very complimentary over McGee's computer skills but that wasn't going to solve the puzzle. McGee knew his limitations, just as he knew that Professor Eppes's limitations included an inability to devise an escape route from this well-appointed jail cell.

McGee scanned the workroom once again, still hoping to figure out how to get one or both out of this mess. This particular room was subterranean, perhaps the finished basement of an old mansion. The ceiling was tall—McGee estimated that it was at least ten feet—with track lighting that illuminated every nook and cranny of the room. Whoever had furnished the place seemed to think that the inhabitants would spend the majority of their working hours there: a sitting area with two sofas to provide a 'conversation nook' and a small kitchenette beyond stocked with a selection of bottled water and healthy snacks. Eppes had taken one look and made a face; their captors, it was clear, had researched the habits of their new employees and were expecting to maintain them in this place for the foreseeable future. This was not a one-shot deal.

McGee was both heartened and dismayed by the prospect. It diminished the possibility that Ms. Marple considered them as disposable once this code was broken, but it also suggested that she had invested a great deal of research as to how to offer Eppes and Penfield a 'deal that they couldn't refuse'. Wait—obviously _not_ enough research, or she would have recognized immediately that McGee wasn't Penfield, and that would have been fatal for one NCIS Special Agent Timothy McGee.

Opposite the 'living room' was a large pad of paper on an easel that Eppes had covered with numbers and letters, not all of which were in English. This was the work area, outfitted with two high end computers. McGee's mouth had drooled as soon as the main display had come on: this was almost as good as the set up that he'd assembled in his own home, piece by piece, tweaking the system until—he lied to himself—that the next upgrade would need to involve something with the logo 'Cray'.

Any hope of sending a message through the internet had been dashed within seconds. Ms. Marple had obviously anticipated the possibility and had countered it by removing the hardware. At first McGee had hoped that she'd merely turned off the internal modem; no such luck. The woman realized the quality of genius that Eppes and Penfield possessed and took steps to prevent either from calling for help. McGee himself was good with making computers turn cartwheels but even he couldn't access the Internet without the proper equipment. He was stumped.

The windows? Best bet. There were two of them, spaced some ten feet apart and partly submerged by grass which had told McGee that they were located in the basement. Professor Eppes, with his smaller build, would be able to wriggle out but McGee would have a harder time of it. McGee found his gaze drawn back to the glass over and over again, eying the rims of the windows and mentally debating which one would be the easiest to get through—and how. Neither one was designed to open, which meant either smashing the glass—and McGee had already dismissed that as too noisy and too likely to draw their captors—or somehow removing the glass in a silent and covert fashion.

"Yo! Penfield! A little help here!"

"Oh. Right." McGee came back to reality, pulling his attention back from the window and onto what Dr. Eppes was indicating on the easel. He scowled at the equation, thinking that this was entirely too much like sitting in a classroom once again, waiting for the final exam to be handed out. "You added a sigma to the left side. Wait a minute; shouldn't that sigma be negative?"

"Nope. Double negative, _Penfield_ ," and Eppes emphasized the pseudo-name, "so the sigma ends up positive. And here, look at the alpha sub-one minus the alpha sub-two; it handles the negative over on the right, so we're equivalent."

"Right." This was why McGee had drifted to computers. Let the electrons handle remembering which was positive and which was negative. It was what they were good at. McGee just told the computer what equations to plug in.

Dr. Eppes apparently had a computer for a brain. The positive and negative equations simply _flowed_ , as did the pieces of the answer.

It was flowing now; McGee already, in their short acquaintance, knew the signs. Eppes was staring at the paper on the easel, fingers twitching as though they held a marking pen, the glazed look spreading over his corneas indicating that comprehension was arriving.

It was replaced by fear, and McGee felt his own gut tighten. "Dr. Eppes?"

"It's there," Eppes whispered, his face ashen.

This was _so_ not good. McGee had been counting on stalling for another day at least; another day for the authorities to try to track them down. Surely the FBI was on the trail; McGee couldn't count on his own fellow agents—Gibbs was good, but come on! It was Friday night, with a week end coming up, and the only reason that Gibbs would try to call McGee was to tell him that the espionage case was heating up. If that didn't happen, Gibbs wouldn't think about his junior team member until Monday morning—but Eppes was well respected and even more to the point, was expected to show up Saturday morning at the Pentagon to discuss something pertinent to national security.

Still… "What is it?" McGee asked, half-dreading the answer.

He was right; Eppes turned haunted eyes on him. He kept his voice down. "They're planning to bring in a shipment of a bio-weapon. These are instructions for where to pick it up."

Slivers of ice ran through McGee's veins. This was it. This was the big one, something that he and his fellow NCIS agents and every upstanding American had sworn to prevent: an attack on American soil by the enemy. It was something to rival the Twin Towers, and it was staring them in the face.

The question was: what could they do about it? McGee steeled himself and asked the question that he dreaded: "Where?"

Eppes looked away. "I'm not sure. Not yet. I can have it in…" he trailed off.

"It's going to take a while," Penfield-McGee insisted grimly. "There are a lot more possibilities to sift through before we can get pinpoint the exact location."

Eppes matched his unhappy expression. "A lot," he agreed.

***

"Got it, boss—er, Agent Eppes," DiNozzo stammered, turning the name around on its ear.

"Right here, Tony." Gibbs walked in on his man's sentence, neatly swiping the attention away from Don.

Don couldn't help but be impressed. His opposite number on the NCIS team effortlessly led his team; there was no doubt as to who was in charge in the bullpen. Gibbs took over the room merely by entering.

Not important; Don would let the Devil himself lead the team if it would get Charlie back to him in one piece.

Furthermore, Don could see DiNozzo relax as soon as Gibbs spoke. The implication was obvious: this was a team who had dealt with other agencies and did it by closing ranks against intruders from different branches of the same government. Don avoided clenching his lips, refusing to give anything away. This was not the time for a turf war. There were more important things at stake, and Don himself had had the misfortune to participate in his own share of turf wars.

That didn't mean that Special Agent Don Eppes was going to let anything slide by.

"I ran Schinoff's cell phone records, boss," DiNozzo announced, aware that the FBI team was listening closely. "He didn't make too many calls: three to his dry cleaner's, two to an overseas number in Greece, and one to a residence in Tyson's Corner."

"Run it down, DiNozzo. Who does the residence belong to?"

"Already got it, boss. Someone by the name of Jorge Santos, no known arrests or convictions, nothing but a clean driver's license."

"Any connections?" Colby couldn't sit still.

DiNozzo flicked the out of town guest an unreadable glance. "None that are popping up in our database. Not yet, anyway."

"We'll need to check him out," Gibbs decided. He scanned the group of three FBI agents, his own expression hooded, figuring out how to use the manpower without getting someone killed or fired. "We won't be able to do anything about the calls to Greece so this Santos guy is our best bet. Ziva, check out the calls to Greece anyway. Schinoff said something about Leonard Kwitarunge, so we'll assume that the Greek calls went to him—at least, for now. DiNozzo, take…" He cocked his head.

"David, go with him." Don made the decision for his team. "Colby, help Officer David track down the calls to Greece. Access our own databanks and see what pops up. Make sure that Kwitarunge is in Greece, at least."

"On it." Colby Granger, man of action, swallowed his disappointment.

More from Gibbs. "After that, make a visit to the dry cleaner, Ziva."

Puzzling. Don had expected to pair up with the NCIS team leader to explore that very lead. Why the hell would anyone call their dry cleaner _three_ times? It sounded promising, and Don very much wanted to _personally_ track down _promising._

Gibbs had other ideas. "You're with me, Eppes," he instructed.

He'd play along—for now. Fellow FBI agent Fornell had vouched for the competence of these guys, although not without a malicious glint in his eye, so Don was willing to follow Gibbs's lead for the moment. Gibbs knew D.C., and Don did not. He followed Gibbs into the elevator, noting the height of the man, the straight spine, figuring that somewhere in this man's past the military figured prominently; Marines, probably, though another branch was always a possibility. If Don found himself in a dark alley with this NCIS man, he really hoped that they'd be on the same side. The white bandage on the NCIS team leader's hand seemed to suggest that he wasn't one to stand back and let others get mussed.

Gibbs let the elevator slide down all of half a level before stabbing the panic stop.

Don caught himself with a jerk. "What are you doing?"

Gibbs turned to face him. "My office."

"Your office?"

"My office." Gibbs deliberately leaned against the elevator wall. "What was your consultant working on? And why the hell do you use your brother as your consultant? I thought that the FBI had rules on nepotism."

Don chose to answer the second question first. "We do. My brother got his position through his own skills, by proving his worth to law enforcement. And," and Don leaned forward just slightly for emphasis, "his clearance is higher than yours and mine put together." Which might have been an exaggeration, but then again: it might not. Don only knew that Charlie had consulted at some of the highest levels, and that any travel outside of the country had to be cleared by the State Department before Charlie made his flight arrangements. Don went on the attack. "What are we doing here, Special Agent Gibbs, instead of tracking down leads?"

"We, Special Agent Eppes, are heading down to the Forensics lab."

 _With Goth-Girl? Oh, gawd. Give me Fleinhardt and Gatsbacher any day._

Gibbs kept talking. "I'll ask you again, Agent Eppes: what was your brother working on?"

"A lot of stuff, but nothing related to the FBI at the moment," Don told him. This was important information for the NCIS team leader to know. It ruled out a lot of possibilities, a lot of time-wasters. "He had an appointment at the Pentagon tomorrow—today," he corrected himself, looking at his watch and marveling that he still wasn't tired in the least. _Remarkable what panic and adrenalin could do._ "All of his current projects—to my knowledge—were related to academics, not crime or national security."

"What are his current projects?"

Don frowned. "He's an applied mathematician. He's working on something he calls Cognitive Emergence, and he's usually got a few pie in the sky proofs that he works on for various other scholars. Larry Fleinhardt at CalSci is one, and there are a few people at MIT and Stanford that he regularly corresponds with. That's co-authoring stuff, and not pertinent here. If somebody wanted the information out of those proofs, they'd be going after the primary author, not Charlie."

"The Cognitive Emergence stuff? What's that about?"

"Something about how people think," Don said, the frown deepening. "It's beyond me, but I don't think he's far enough along that anyone would want to hijack him for it. Even when it's finished, I don't think anyone besides the academic world will even care."

Gibbs grunted. "Maybe the CIA." He turned back to the point. "You said that he did some work for the NSA. What kind of work, Eppes?"

Don regarded the NCIS team leader. "Codes. Deciphering. That sort of thing. As far as I know," he added. "It fits, doesn't it?"

"It does," Gibbs agreed. "The NSA misplaced a message. Your brother is an expert at deciphering messages. You want to bet that there _isn't_ a connection?"

"Not taking that bet," Don agreed grimly. "What do we do with that little piece of information?"

"Beats me." Gibbs looked away, tightening his lips. "Trying to track down everyone who attended your brother's lecture isn't going to happen; that's a dead end. All I know is that nobody knows what that missing code says, and that it means that something big is going down soon. We've got to decipher that code, and to do that we need both the code—and your brother." He pulled the panic button out of panic mode, and the elevator jerked itself back into motion. "Hopefully Abby will have something for us."

* * *

David Sinclair let Special Agent DiNozzo drive, and was glad that he did. David knew D.C., but that had been a while ago and the memories had already faded. DiNozzo seemed to know all the short cuts, all the back routes to get to Tyson's Corner while avoiding the rush hour traffic that occurred twenty four hours every day.

Likewise, he didn't know Tyson's Corner. That didn't matter; DiNozzo turned on the GPS that delivered them through all the various turns to arrive at a small but pleasant home surrounded by trees and flowering shrubs. It didn't look like either a major crime lord's abode—too small and unpretentious—or an illegal alien's hovel—too well kept—but it could, David reflected, be occupied by someone who really wanted to keep a low profile. This was just the sort of home that wouldn't attract attention one way or the other.

This was just the sort of home to be occupied by someone who would want to know the contents of a missing cipher that could alter the course of human history.  
DiNozzo pulled up in front of the house, turning off the engine. David didn't wait; he was already out of the passenger seat and halfway up the walk when DiNozzo caught up with him.

David slowed. "How do we play this? We have anything on this guy? A traffic stop, anything like that?"

"Not a thing." DiNozzo kept going, forcing David to keep up. "Let's rattle his cage, Sinclair; see what falls out." He rapped sharply on the door, ignoring the slender plastic doorbell screwed into the edge of the doorframe. "NCIS! Open up, Santos."

Nothing.

David, with a sideways look at his new colleague, saved his knuckles and rang the doorbell. "Federal agents! Mr. Santos, we need to talk to you."

"Hold on! Hold on! I'm coming; just hold your horses." The door opened to display a wizened old man, an elegant goatee the most prominent feature to look at. He peered at them through rheumy eyes. "What do you fellers want?"

"Federal agents, Mr. Santos." David briefly displayed his badge, not at all certain that the old gentleman saw anything beyond a flash of gold. "I'm Special Agent Sinclair from the FBI; this is Special Agent DiNozzo from NCIS."

Santos looked harder at the badge that DiNozzo held up. "What's this NCIS?" He glared at DiNozzo. "You wastin' taxpayers' money, sonny?"

DiNozzo kept his face frozen. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service," he replied, refusing to look at his fellow government agent with a better known set of initials. Likewise, he declined to acknowledge the man's second question.

David took advantage of the situation. He held up a picture of the late Yuri Schinoff, one that had been taken after the blood spatter had been cleaned up. Dr. Mallard hadn't been able to do anything about the hole that marred the otherwise pristine forehead, but David wasn't complaining. He showed the picture to Mr. Santos. "Know this man?"

Santos blinked. "Nope. Never saw him before in my life."

They caught it, both of them: that unconscious hesitation before the blink. The hesitation wasn't any longer than the time it took for a gnat to beat its wing once, but both agents caught it. There was also the lack of shock—only a certain class of people failed to be moved by the picture of a murdered body.

DiNozzo moved in. "That's odd, Mr. Santos, because he made a call to this very house just yesterday." He cocked his head. "Want to change your story?"

Santos stood fast. "Sonny, the only calls I get here are from bill collectors and scam artists." He tried to look at the picture again, frowning. "You sure you're from the FBI?"

"I am," David repeated patiently. "Special Agent DiNozzo is with NCIS."

"Never heard of 'em," Santos announced.

Proclaiming his new partner's legitimacy wasn't going to get him anywhere, and there were better topics to pursue. David moved on to the next one, something more likely to determine the whereabouts of a missing FBI consultant and a missing NCIS agent. "May we come in? We'd like to look around." He almost held his breath.

Santos furrowed his brows. "Don't think I like the sound of that," he said. "You fellers got a warrant?"

Clearly something was up. David grimly felt the exultation somewhere deep inside. He moved up closer to give the appearance of looming, sensing his newfound fellow NCIS agent doing the same. "Do we need a warrant, Mr. Santos?" he asked, his tone half-pleasant and half-threatening. "An honest citizen wouldn't hesitate to let us in. They'd have nothing to hide."

"What do _you_ have to hide, Mr. Santos?" DiNozzo didn't miss a beat. It was as if the pair had been working together for years instead of hours. "This is national security. We could get that warrant in a heartbeat."

"Or," David had been elected peace-keeper, "we could come in, look around, and leave. No one would know that we were here. Unless, of course, we found something suspicious. We're only interested in _certain_ things," he added. "We're not with the DEA. We're not on any gun-running detail, either."

The eyes that darted nervously back and forth didn't look quite so befuddled as Mr. Santos had initially presented. There were plans moving at lightning speed in that brain.

However, this was no time to be playing around. Priorities: national security, which meant recovering one missing message; mathematician and NCIS agent not necessarily included. Two lives against the thousands, perhaps millions, that would be lost if the threat enclosed in that message wasn't intercepted in time. Was the message physically located inside Santos's house? Both agents had experienced stranger things—and the message could lead to both Charlie and McGee.

DiNozzo was the one who couldn't wait. "Time's up." He pulled out his cell and flipped it open. He hit speed dial. "Boss? DiNozzo, here. You got Ziva standing outside the judge's chamber, right? Yup, he's not cooperating—"

"All right!" Santos broke, right in front of them. "Come in!"

DiNozzo didn't flinch. "Cancel that, boss." He flipped the cell shut, and David declined to give any indication that he knew that the call hadn't gone anywhere, that it was all for show. It had worked.

Inside the home was just as unremarkable as the outside. David caught the signs of someone who wanted the world to think that he was simply an aging gentleman left alone in the world, whose family occasionally looked in on him and hoped that someone else would eventually take care of putting him into a nursing home when the time came. The family would handle the odious task of the disposal of his fortune, whatever was left of it. The sofa in the parlor still had quite a bit of life in it, and the mail was neatly stacked on a small and elegant end table, all the ends slit open by the letter opener that sat next to the pile of mail. Every letter was positioned so that the opened side was facing the same way; obsessive-compulsive disorder, David couldn't help thinking. Dust had fled the scene, meaning that the man spent most of his time dusting or that he'd invested in a very competent house-keeping service—or both. David compared the place to his own: David was by no means a slob, but what he wouldn't _give_ for Santos's maid!

David glanced through the mail, noting the large quantity of return addresses from countries south of the Mexican border. The letters seemed innocuous, just missives from friends and families overseas, but they raised suspicion. The world had changed, and there was the Internet. Why were people writing letters requiring expensive postage when there was faster and cheaper methods like email? These letters were coming from major cities, places with adequate electricity and technology, and the letters themselves were well written with attention to grammar and spelling. These were not simple peasants writing to their favorite uncle in the States, hoping for an invite. If he hadn't suspected it earlier, David knew it now: Santos was dirty.

A sideways look at DiNozzo told him that the NCIS agent had picked up on the same thing. The question, however, was: did it relate to the current crime? Was Santos involved?

Time to find out. David picked up one letter, translating the Spanish in his head: _Good day, uncle. I hope that the season finds you well and in good health for all eighty three of your years. Cousin Ramon sends his regards, and those of all of his children, all three of them. He hopes to see you very soon, perhaps within eight days, at your hacienda to the south. Your loving nephew, Diego._

There were two translations taking place, and David was providing both of them, frowning. He turned to his new partner. "Agent DiNozzo," he said, still holding the letter in his hands, "can you tell me if there was a recent theft of guns from any of the military or paramilitary arsenals. Say, eighty three of something was stolen? Perhaps accompanied by three of something else?"

DiNozzo's eyes narrowed. "Yes, Agent Sinclair, I believe that a report like that crossed my desk fairly recently. Eighty three cases of M-16s were stolen, along with three cases of grenades. Why do you ask?"

"We have a coincidence, Agent DiNozzo." David indicated the letter. "Mr. Santos is eighty three years old, and his cousin has three children." He turned to Santos. "I work with a consulting mathematician, Mr. Santos. He would consider that a _remarkable_ coincidence."

"I'm sure he would," DiNozzo agreed, not letting Santos speak. "Are there any other _remarkable_ coincidences in that letter, Agent Sinclair?"

David frowned again, but this was just for show. "You have a hacienda, Mr. Santos? Where is it?"

"Not a hacienda, despite what my cousin writes," Santos said hastily. Sweat beaded on his brow. "Just a small home. I have a small home in…Florida."

DiNozzo offered a tight little smile. "That should be fairly easy to check. Who knows what we would find there?" He turned to David. "Think our agencies would spring for a quick trip to Florida, Agent Sinclair?"

"I don't think we'd have to bother, Agent DiNozzo," David responded, his eyes on the old man. "I think a simple check of the records could be accomplished with a little computer time."

DiNozzo snapped his fingers in disappointment. "Aw, and I was hoping to spend a day or two in the sun."

"Better luck next time, Agent DiNozzo," David sympathized dryly. "We'll simply have to let our Florida branch handle the on site visitation. Just to be certain that Mr. Santos's 'hacienda' wasn't damaged by any hurricanes."

"I thought that hurricane season didn't start for another two months, Agent Sinclair."

"One can never be too careful, Agent DiNozzo."

Mr. Santos had had enough. "Maybe I got a more recent letter," he suggested somewhat desperately. "Something maybe from that feller you was talkin' about, what was his name?" He started to ruffle through the neatly stacked envelopes, searching for something that would send the agents away.

"You mean Yuri Schinoff," DiNozzo prompted, all three of them well aware that Santos hadn't forgotten the name at all. "Yes, that would be of far greater interest to us, Mr. Santos. In fact, it might be so important to us that we wouldn't have time to notify our Florida NCIS branch to check for hurricane damage."

"Here it is." Santos pounced on the missive, holding it out to David as though he'd suddenly discovered that the thing was covered with lice.

David took the paper, aware that after all this time there would be no convenient fingerprints for anyone to track. They would have to make do with other clues that the letter possessed. He scanned the contents. "We'll need to take this with us, Mr. Santos."

"Do what you gotta do," Santos nodded amicably. "I ain't goin' anywhere."

"See that you don't," DiNozzo told him sternly. "We may have more questions for you. Don't leave town, Mr. Santos."

"Oh, I won't."

David led the way back to DiNozzo's car. "He's going to rabbit. You know that."

"Sure I do," DiNozzo replied promptly, "but he's not who we're after." He waved Mr. Santos's letter in the air. "This is far more important."

"What about the weapons that were stolen? You're going to let that go?"

DiNozzo grinned. "I told him that I wouldn't have time to notify our Florida NCIS branch. I didn't say anything about the FBI."

***

Colby swallowed hard, certain that his liver had been left somewhere in the vicinity of Fourth and Lamont. It wasn't as bad as jumping a plane over the mountains of Afghanistan, but it came close. "You get traffic like this all the time in D.C.?" he asked, hoping that the words came out in his usual baritone and not in a little girl squeak.

Ziva David spared him a glance, one that was far too long diverted from the flow of traffic for Colby's sense of self-preservation. "I was given to understand, Agent Granger, that your Los Angeles traffic is by far the worst in the United States."

"It has its moments," Colby agreed, thinking that it wasn't really the traffic that he was worried about and wondering how this car he was sitting in had managed to avoid more scratches than it already had with a driver like the one currently behind the wheel. "This looks like the dry cleaning place," he said, trying not to sound relieved and wondering how he could offer to drive back without coming off as either patronizing or panic-stricken. _Aw, the hell with it. Either obnoxious and alive, or politely dead._ "How do you want to handle this? Good cop, bad cop?"

"I have usually found," Ziva informed him, "that 'bad cop, bad cop' is the most effective way to obtain information."

"Right." _I hope this guy isn't size extra large, and I hope he doesn't have any friends nearby. From the sound of this chick, I may need to talk our way out. How does her team put up with her? Hell, they're probably just as bad…_

The dry cleaning store was not particularly large, wedged between two other buildings. The store itself could have used a thorough cleaning: the welcome mat bore three rips in it, the walls hadn't been washed in long enough for the dust to grow legs, and the racks of clothes looked as though the majority of customers had forgotten to pick up their dry cleaning over the last several months. _Front,_ was Colby's immediate conclusion. This was a place with little to no overhead, little business, that stayed alive because a lot of people needed to have something laundered and Colby wasn't talking about clothing. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and the weight of his handgun was comforting as it hung from his shoulder holster, hidden under his jacket. He hoped that he wouldn't need it.

Okay, he _really_ hoped that he wouldn't need it. Problem number one: the guy behind the counter was big enough to make Colby think twice. That in itself wasn't necessarily a problem: Colby was a firm believer in the use of leverage to reduce a large man to manageable proportions and he knew plenty of techniques to assist in the reduction process, but a fast look down the length of the shop showed three more men of comparable size. Colby was good but four to one were odds that he didn't care to bank on. Even with this slip of a girl next to him and his gun in his holster, they'd be lucky to get out alive.

 _Okay…I start talking first, before Dynamo-Girl opens her mouth._ He flipped open his badge, letting the gold flash in whatever sunlight slipped through the filthy windows. "Granger, FBI," he said tersely to the thug behind the counter. "Officer David," he added, indicating his new partner, neglecting to tell them which department she was with. _What the hell; they wouldn't recognize it, anyway._ "Got a few questions."

The thug decided to be not interested. "What makes you think we got the answers?" A small smile told everyone that Thug One knew that Thugs Two, Three and Four were likewise listening intently to the conversation.

Colby had his response ready. "'Cause we traced a few calls to this place, duuuude." He drew the last word out.

Thug One continued to follow the script. "We get calls here all the time, duuuude," he sneered, giving the word the same emphasis as Colby.

Yup. Right answer. "But not from a guy who's now dead, man. His brains are splattered on the rug," Colby told him. "Not real pretty. Care to get chatty?"

Flash from the eyes. Not obvious, but Colby had been watching for it, knew for a fact that the Israeli agent beside him had picked up on the same thing.

Thug One made his decision. "Don't know anything about no dead guy," he said.

Also predictable, and Colby shrugged. "Too bad." He sighed, making the point clear. "I guess we'll have to go through everything in the place. Who knows what we'll find in the back room? Maybe in the pockets of some of the clothing here?" he asked rhetorically, noting the flicker of concern that rippled across the three thugs seated in the back. One started to rise; the others followed suit, coming toward the front.

Crap. That meant that there really was something here that they wanted to hide, which meant that Colby and this Officer David had better get it _now_ before somebody destroyed it. Waiting for a warrant to be delivered on a silver platter was likewise out of the question; whatever they had would be long gone by the time anybody got through to a judge.

This had a pretty reasonable chance of turning into a mushroom cloud if they didn't find out what was going on. It was one of those career-altering moments: if things worked out right, everybody applauded and gave you medals. If it didn't? Well, there was always an opening on the night shift for a security guard at the kiddie museum. Colby took a moment to wonder what the Israeli equivalent was, and then dismissed the thought; Israeli's went crazy over security. They'd give Ziva a medal for ripping this guy's lungs out through his ears even if they didn't find anything.

 _I should be so lucky. Mushroom cloud, here we come._ "Talk, dude, or we're taking you downtown," Colby said, trying to sound tough and threatening and cajoling all at the same time. "You and all your friends." _Was it really downtown, or was it uptown?_ Colby couldn't remember the directions. Not that it mattered.

Thug One glanced back at his fellows: four against two. "Don't think so, _duuuude,_ " he drawled.

Colby couldn't quite read the expression on his new partner's face; was it anticipation? Her eyes narrowed. "I wasn't aware that you were in the habit of thinking," she told Thug One, apparently well aware that she was baiting the bear. Ziva pulled out the picture of the dead Yuri Schinoff, brains splattered over the living room carpet in what would now be considered his estate, proceeds to be turned over to heirs and/or creditors once the Forensics Unit had finished with it. "Tell me about him."

"Don't know him," Thug One said.

Not good enough; once again, Colby caught the widening of the pupils that said lie.

Ziva caught it, too. "We will go through this place, and tear it apart," she threatened. "You will disclose what we need to know and you will do it now, or I will remain here until I get what I want."

"This is national security, guy," Colby warned, wondering how to keep this situation from turning into a scene from the Wonderful World of Wrestling. "We got a couple of judges standing by, just for a moment like this one." That was actually the truth; the mislaid code was of such importance that Special Agent Fornell had let drop that he had a man sitting in a Federal judge's living room with a cell phone in his hand.

Thug One wasn't impressed. "Hah. You don't got no probable cause for a warrant."

Ziva placed her hand over Thug One's. And _leaned._

Thug One's face whitened. He sucked in his breath through clenched teeth.

 _Crap! What the hell is she doing? How the hell is she doing it—?_

Ziva _leaned_ some more.

Thug One moaned. It wasn't a sound that he chose to utter; it simply seeped out of him before he could order it to stop.

That was the signal for the other three to jump up. Chairs scattered behind them, and they advanced.

"Hold it right there, dudes!" Colby ordered. "David!" _Chill out,_ he wanted to say.

Not in front of the opposition. Ziva heard him—he could see it in the lines of her body—and she reluctantly eased up.

Color trickled back into Thug One's face. He inhaled more than his share of oxygen, trying to prevent any more whimpers from emerging to humiliate himself. He pulled his hand back from where Ziva could get at it, massaging the back of his hand furiously. "Bitch."

Ziva smiled as if he'd paid her a compliment, a tight little stretch of the lips that would have done the Mona Lisa proud. _Maybe he had,_ Colby couldn't help but think.

Ziva perched herself on the edge of the counter, taunting them. "Was there something, perhaps, that you wanted to tell us?" she asked crisply. It was very clear that she was perfectly willing to inflict the same sort of persuasive tactics on the three in the back. How she expected to do it to the remaining three without getting killed was a mystery to Colby, but the Mossad agent was carrying on.

Nothing to do but to back his new partner's play. Colby shrugged, making it dramatic. "Your choice," he told them, including all four in his statement. "We can talk here, or we can take this some place more difficult."

Thug One coughed, trying to clear his throat of the pain in his hand. "What do you want to know?"

It wasn't a real question, just a chance for the man to catch his breath and a few scattered wits. Colby allowed him the opportunity. "Yuri Schinoff," he repeated, "dude called here three times yesterday. Why?"

The three in the back glowered, trying to decide whether or not to rush the pair of agents, while Thug One really considered his answer. "Wanted to get hold of someone."

"Who?"

There was a long pause, filled with a very loud silence.

"Let's not go backwards, dude. Who?"

Heavy sigh. "Guy named Mort."

"Last name?"

"Not a clue," Thug One said grimly, with the full expectation that he wouldn't be believed.

Ziva started to pull herself to a standing—and fighting—position.

Colby made a small gesture, holding her in place. "What's your connection to this guy Mort?"

Thug One eyed Ziva nervously. "He comes in every one or two days."

"What does he want?"

"This is a dry cleaning place. He gets his suits done."

"Right. His pockets get cleaned out?"

Thug One flushed. "Yeah."

Thug Three, in back, coughed ominously.

Ziva caught it. "You have something you wish to add?"

He glared at her. The others glanced at each other, discomfort written large across each face.

Colby really wished that they had a back up squad sitting outside. This was too big a group to cope with, and something was going to get lost. He only hoped that whatever evidence was about to get destroyed wasn't the piece that would lead them to Charlie.

It was going down.

"Dude, let's keep this easy on everyone," Colby warned. "We're hunting bigger fish than the four of you, and I think you know how easy it is to disappear if you don't have the FBI on your ass. We're not interested in penny-ante stuff. We're looking at National Security crap."

Thug Three was inching his way toward the back. It was too much to hope for that there was only one exit, that the D.C. fire inspectors had allowed a supposedly public business establishment to operate without a back door in case of fire. Colby saw Ziva edging around the counter for a straight run, and this time he wasn't about to hold her back. This one was going to fly.

No time like the present. "You," Colby ordered, pointing at Thug Number Three. "Come on up here. Talk—"

Had Colby said 'talk' or 'run away like a scared rabbit'? He could have sworn that 'talk' was what came out of his mouth.

Didn't matter. Thug Number Three took off like a bat out of hell, and Ziva peeled off after him.

No choice. You didn't let your partner go in hot pursuit alone. They'd just have to hope that whatever was in the dry cleaner's shop wasn't related to their current case, and that the turkey running out through the back was. Colby shoved Thug One aside to dash after the smaller Israeli agent.

The back exit opened out into a narrow alley. The fugitive shoved a trashcan down behind him, and Ziva leaped over it like a desert gazelle. Colby swore; he was fast, but hurdles weren't his favorite sport.

The alley broke onto the street, the sidewalk clear and relatively free from pedestrians. Colby used the flat ground to put on a burst of speed, overtaking and passing his NCIS partner. Ziva shouted something incoherent at him, the words lost in the wind, but she pointed to the left and he understood her to mean that she would circle around and cut off the escape route.

Fine with him. Anything to bring the perp down. Colby demanded more speed from himself, closing the gap between Thug Three and the pursuit. Adrenalin pumped, and hunter vision narrowed down to one thing: the fleeing man in front of him.

Close enough—Colby left the ground, a straight shoulder tackle from behind. He took the man around the waist, grabbing onto the man's jeans with strong fingers that wouldn't let go. They rolled onto the ground, and rocks slammed into Colby's shoulder as he tucked it under to protect himself from the fall.

Thug Three was twice as big as Colby and twice as mean, but Colby had something that Thug Three didn't: smarts. Thug Three threw a roundhouse, and Colby blocked it with his forearm. The force of the blow rattled up and down his bicep, but Colby ignored it. He went for the uppercut, returning the force with interest to the guy's chin. Glass jaw? No such luck; the blow barely staggered Thug Three. He came back, ready for more with fists flailing.

Okay, boxing was out. Colby could throw punches all day and not take this bozo down. That meant wrestling and judo. Colby grabbed the guy's shoulder and slammed him up against the brick wall, trying to wrap the thug's arm behind his back for a half Nelson. Where the hell was the Mossad chick? She ought to have caught up with them by now.

Thug Three was waiting for the move. He blasted out of Colby's hold through sheer power, nearly ripping Colby's arm off in the process. With a roar, he charged at Colby, head down, intent on slamming Colby into the wall opposite and flattening him into FBI paste.

Crap! Colby sidled aside enough to avoid the pancake part, but not enough to allow Thug Three to careen into the wall himself and knock himself out. The pair wrestled, falling to the cold hard pavement. Colby struggled to keep the man from gaining his own hold, one that had the potential to break Colby's spine, while seeking any opportunity to finish this. Dammit, they needed a suspect who could talk!

Small surges: Colby forced his fingers further up toward the all important head. Control the head, control the body. Voices of instructors from high school up through Quantico chanted little mantras into his brain, all variations on the concept of _win._ Shove, push, grab, _lock!_ Colby felt a vicious little thrill as his fingers clamped into the submission hold. No way this dude was going anywhere!

A shadow fell over them. "Having fun?" a female voice, accented, inquired.

Colby tried to look up, and couldn't. "Could've used a bit a help here," he grunted.

"Help has arrived," Ziva observed archly, snapping the bracelet of her handcuffs over a richly deserving wrist. Colby relaxed enough to allow the second cuff to be applied, and hauled Thug Three to his feet.

"I told you to make it easy on yourself," he told the man, keeping a firm grasp on the dude's bicep, just in case there were still any thoughts of escape floating in what passed for the man's brain.

Ziva allowed herself a tight smile. "We will see what you have to say for yourself when I interrogate you at NCIS headquarters."

Colby couldn't butting in. "When _I_ interrogate him, you mean."

Cooperation over. "Either _I_ will do it, or Gibbs."

"Me, or Don Eppes."

"Gibbs," she insisted, taking hold of the suspect's other arm.

"Eppes. My collar, David. I ran him down."

" _I_ obtained his name and those of his friends at the shop—"

"FBI bust, David. Eppes does the interrogation."

"Gibbs—"

 _Crack!_

A slender dot blossomed in a blood-shot fountain through Thug Three's eye. He slumped in their grasp, no longer breathing.

Ziva David stared at Colby Granger, an unreadable expression in her deep brown eyes. "You win, Granger. It is an FBI bust. You are welcome to the corpse."

* * *

McGee had already located three listening devices: one was under the table in the small kitchenette, and the other two located behind the computers. Those were interesting; they were posing as flash drives, plugged into ports, and only hard core computer geeks would have questioned their real purpose.

McGee knew better, and he also knew better than to try to remove any of them. He wasn't about to say that there weren't more than just the three, but he would lay odds that tampering with any device would bring someone running to check on the in-house resident code-breakers.

Those computer bugs looked more than interesting, and the geek within McGee longed to examine them. He couldn't say for certain, but he wouldn't be surprised to learn that their design included the ability to scan the work that McGee and Eppes had been doing. Heck, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that those little critters activated the webcam located on the top of the screen to watch what the resident geniuses were doing. McGee had thought that he'd caught an occasional glimpse of a light gleaming through the damn thing. If he hadn't known it before, he knew it now: there was a lot of money invested in this caper, enough to afford these high end toys.

He'd already pointed them out to Professor Eppes, not certain that the man would recognize the significance. Eppes's eyes had widened and his lips tightened, but that was all: message received and understood. Anything and everything that went on in this suite of rooms had the potential to be overheard.

It was amazing what could be communicated by the small tap of a finger. Eppes had started it, had touched McGee's wrist when discussing Baranski's Assymptotes, just enough to let McGee know that Eppes was trying to throw their captors off. McGee hadn't the faintest idea what Baranski's Assymptotes were, but he threw in a few comments about plugging the theorem into a multi-variate analysis on his laptop and hoped it would be enough. McGee had even made it look good, setting up a spreadsheet that practically waggled its macros every time he entered a new value but otherwise made no sense whatsoever.

Eppes moved to a place between the laptops that they had been given, a spot where neither webcam could see. He shifted haunted eyes to the door to their suite—locked, from the outside—and then to the windows. The message was clear: _we have to escape._

McGee could read between the lines, too: Eppes's increasing discomfort meant that he was coming closer and closer to the answer, to the clear and unambiguous reading of the code. Professor Eppes wasn't going to be able to pull off the deception much longer.

It was time to leave, one way or another.

McGee cast one last forlorn look at the windows that led to the grassy expanse outside. Two drawbacks there: too small for McGee, and they'd make too much noise breaking the glass. Ms. Marple's hirelings would be on them in an instant.

No, it would have to be the door. There McGee had an advantage, albeit a slender one. The door to the stairs ascending to the first floor of the mansion was locked—but not to the same high end expectations as the little computer bugs. This door still carried the same click lock from half a century ago, the type of lock that eight years olds engaged when barricading themselves in the bathroom in a vain attempt to avoid going to school. Well, maybe not quite that bad, McGee told himself, but still not the style of lock that he was used to seeing around military installations. McGee never considered himself particularly good with non-computer security, but this particular lock would shudder at the sight of a hair clip.

McGee didn't have a hair clip, but he did have the slender tine of a fork. And he wasn't Professor Marshall Penfield, he was Special Agent Timothy McGee with a little more than street level knowledge of nefarious activities.

Click.

Open.

McGee let out the breath that he didn't realize that he'd been holding, felt a puff of air across his cheek and knew that Eppes had released the same sort of breath. They listened, stock-still, wondering if their activities had yet been discovered.

Not a sound. Not a whisper, no thunder of heavy feet to say that some unknown alarm had been tripped. For all the tech toys that Ms. Marple engaged, they were all useless unless someone was monitoring them. McGee led the way up the stairs, wincing every time one of the old boards creaked.

Still nothing. McGee, in the lead, paused and listened again. He could hear the clink of someone handling dishes. The swoosh of a faucet being turned on pushed in briefly, then off again. Meals, then; someone was preparing food. That meant that he and Eppes didn't have much time: someone would be bringing them their next meal, and would undoubtedly raise the alarm when they found that the two resident geniuses—one real, and one fake—were missing.

The tinkling of dishware grew louder; the kitchen was up ahead and there was no door to shield them from view. McGee swiftly reviewed their options: poor, poorer, and worst. Going back wasn't going to help. Going up another flight of stairs wouldn't get them any closer to outside and freedom, and had the added risk of running into someone that they didn't particularly want to see.

That left slipping by the open entrance to the kitchen. No time like the present: McGee took a deep breath, and, watching that the man's back was turned and his attention on something mouth-watering, darted past the opening.

Past! McGee hugged the wall, listening frantically. Had he been noticed? Had the slightest bit of a shadow alerted the man in the kitchen that the captives were changing their status?

No. The clattering of dishes didn't change. Another plate clinked against something equally as hard with no break in the rhythm to suggest anything amiss. McGee gestured to Professor Eppes.

Eppes peered in, edging just over the rim of the door frame to locate the position of the kitchen worker. He hesitated, then slipped forward to join McGee.

Safe—for the moment. There was no change in the sounds emanating from the kitchen, and McGee drew Professor Eppes forward, heading for the front door.

No picklock needed here; front doors were designed to be easily opened from the inside. McGee had a bad moment when the lock snapped loudly, but the Great Outdoors beckoned equally as loud. He pulled Eppes out behind him, casting swiftly about to orient himself.

It was a suburban, almost rural, neighborhood, the street lined with tall trees which had likely been saplings at the time of the Civil War some hundred and fifty years ago. It was also a neighborhood that believed that good fences made for good neighbors; each mansion rose up from behind tall gates, some stone and some made of mere wooden planks carved ornately to prove that they too cost money.

Better than nothing. McGee would have preferred that the front door dump them out onto a busy street with a traffic patrol officer directing traffic, complete with a radio straight into some place official. Calling for help at the moment sounded pretty attractive, especially considering what knowledge lay inside Professor Eppes's head. "C'mon," he urged, seizing Eppes by the sleeve, pulling him forward. "We need to get out of here."

Eppes needed no further invitation. With a speed that surprised McGee, Eppes broke out into a swift jog that McGee himself had trouble keeping up with.

McGee's hopes began to rise. Could it really be this easy? Could they really break out of their ever so comfortable prison, escape to the nearest street corner and flag down a cop? McGee didn't dare try to turn into one of the mansions; there was too great a chance that the place would be empty with no one to let them in to use a phone. No, better to keep on running until they met up with some beat cop who would enjoy the reflected glory of restoring the NSA genius consultant to the clutches of his agency. McGee would live with the inevitable remarks by DiNozzo about needing to be rescued by one of the local's men in blue.

No, of course not. Easy was never easy. McGee's keen ear heard a shout behind them; their absence had been discovered. "Run!" McGee gasped out, moving from a fast jog to a flat out run.

Eppes didn't need another invitation. He stretched his legs, eyes wide with fear, and began to pull away from McGee.

 _Yes! Yes!_ As much as McGee valued his own hide, it was more important that Professor Eppes escape. Now, how to make that happen? Should McGee drop back, delay the pursuit so that Eppes could surge ahead? McGee chanced a glance over his shoulder, saw that none of their captors had invested much time in sprinting practice. All of the pursuers were dropping back, tongues hanging out and losing ground.

"Go! Go!" McGee yelled at Eppes, trying to extend his own long legs to keep up with the shorter man. Wouldn't DiNozzo give him a hard time for being out-run by a squirt of a college academic? McGee resolved to insist that he was covering Eppes's back—assuming that they got out of this alive.

It looked like they would.

Until something whizzed almost silently by his ear: bullets!

Smug victory was instantly replaced by cold hard fear in his gut. "Go!" he yelled again, his voice this time rimmed with terror. Eppes recognized the danger and sped up, pulling away from McGee yet again.

Then McGee was on the ground, rolling onto the tarmac, his shoulder on fire as stones bit into skin protected only by flimsy cotton cloth. He reached to protect the injury, to grab it to stop the pain—when suddenly the real injury made itself known. It wasn't his shoulder. It was his leg. Fire flashed through his thigh, a delayed reaction to the projectile which had brought him down like a duck shot out of the sky.

Running? Not going to happen. Even walking was _so_ out of the question. McGee grabbed onto his leg just above the blood, hoping that breathing wouldn't be required for the next few minutes and that the agony shooting up and down would go away _soon!_ There wasn't any room in his brain for anything except the torrent of volcanic fury emanating from just above his knee.

Then Professor Eppes was at his side. "C'mon!" he urged frantically. "Get up!"

No! Eppes had come back for him! McGee tried to get his wits and his mouth to cooperate. "Go!" he croaked. "Escape!"

"Not without you. C'mon!"

"Go!" McGee insisted, wishing he could put forth some erudite theory that this genius would understand. "Go!"

Too late. Two guns pushed down between them, gun barrels blue and deadly in appearance.

***

"Of _course_ I have something for you, Gibbs," Abby said, turning to her bench of machines. "You're here, are you? Do you ever show up when I don't have anything for you?"

Goth-Girl was in full swing. A little subdued compared to earlier, but Don was willing to put that down to worry over the missing NCIS man. The mascara was smudged, suggesting that she'd been crying.

Don hoped that this wouldn't take long. This was D.C., but it was also NCIS, not the best funded of the investigative departments. There were two things that needed to happen: speed, and results. If neither of those appeared, then Don was going to confiscate the evidence and turn it over to someone with a little more on the ball; namely, his own well-funded department with its headquarters in this town. Well… _better_ funded. Nobody these days laid claim to _good_ funding.

"So, what do you have?" Don asked, trying to keep his impatience under control.

"A lot, Mr. FBI Man," she replied. She jerked her thumb at the screen over the bench. "First of all: fingerprints. No go. Dead end. We got a bunch of them from the hotel room where we lost McGee and your guy. Most we could eliminate, 'cause they belonged to the guests who were there, who were _supposed_ to be there. I can confirm that McGee was there; his prints were on one of the glasses. There were a number that we couldn't confirm."

"You ran those prints?"

"I ran the prints," Abby nodded, "and most came back as locals without any kind of record or suspicious activities. The likelihood is that they're all living in this area and happened to be in the hotel sometime during the past little while, just long enough to let their fingerprints be on stuff in the room. You can check 'em out, Gibbs, but I wouldn't put any faith in them. They could belong to a lot of uninvolved people."

"And—?" Gibbs prompted.

Abby never missed a beat. "The upstairs room was cleaned. The only prints I could find belonged to McGee and Professor Eppes and two of the housekeeping staff. Again, not a surprise. If I were the kidnappers, I'd wear gloves, too. But now we come to the good part, Gibbs." She indicated one more machine. "Tony brought me the crushed ampule from that room, the one with a trace of liquid still in it."

"Right."

"I identified the liquid. It's propofol."

Don blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Propofol," Abby repeated. "It's an anesthetic agent, commonly used in ICUs and operating rooms across the country. I checked it out with Ducky; it's pretty good for taking people down quick and up just as quick. That's why doctors like it. It gives them good control over a bad situation."

Gibbs was ready with the next thought. "That means that someone had access to a hospital."

"More," Don added. "It had to be someone with some medical knowledge. There aren't that many people who know what this propo- stuff is, let alone how to use it."

"How to use it _safely,_ " Gibbs nodded, already on the same path. "That should narrow down the suspects."

Don beat him to it. "Those fingerprints that you found and matched to the locals; any doctors? Nurses?"

"Plenty of doctors, but they're all Ph.D's," Abby reported. "This was a get together for academics, Mr. FBI Guy. Super intelligent types. Doctorates in math, physics, stuff like that."

"But people who are accustomed to researching things," Don argued, "people who routinely take a problem, researching the information surrounding the issue—"

"—and then solving it with technology," Gibbs finished for him. "Abby, give me that list of people that you matched against the fingerprints."

"Gibbs, it's not complete—"

"Give me the rest," Don interrupted. Goth-Girl had done some nice work; it was time to use some of his own. "I'll put FBI resources onto it, Gibbs. Let's see if some of the FBI data bases are more complete."

***

"Got it, boss," DiNozzo announced, holding up his hand.

Sinclair was on his tail. "The letter that we got from Santos, Don; it's from Diego Escobar, a South American drug lord."

"Looks like he's branching out into world politics, boss—"

"The word is out on the street: Escobar is looking to purchase some heavy duty deciphering skills, no questions asked. That puts him right in line with what's going down—"

"I have queried my international contacts," Ziva announced, breaking into the back and forth discussion. "Leonard Kwitarunge is no longer in Greece. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is suspected to be somewhere in either Europe or North America."

" _Find_ him, Ziva—"

"He has been on the move for only the past twenty-four hours—"

"Right in line with what's going down right now—"

"Hey, guys?" That was Colby.

They ignored him.

"I've got an unsubstantiated report that Kwitarunge was seen passing through Norway, through Oslo—"

"Nah. MI-5 puts him in Spain, says their best intel has him traveling to Canada in the next twenty-four hours—"

"Got a match on suspect that Ziva and Granger lost to a bullet. His name's Kirby—"

"Yo! Guys!" Colby let out a piercing whistle.

The group rounded on him, stopped dead in their tracks.

"What?" Gibbs demanded.

"The group in the hotel. The bunch that got together with Charlie and Penfield—I mean, Penfield wasn't there—"

"The point, Colby." Don moved in.

"They're all doctors. Ph.D.'s, I mean."

"And—?"

"They're also all mathematicians, physicists, engineers—all in the really hard sciences. All except for this woman: Dr. Helen Michaelson Levinger. And, Don, she was a last minute add on for Charlie's post-lecture get-together." At their look of incomprehension, Colby pushed on. "Guys, this Dr. Levinger is a pharmacist. Her doctorate is in pharmacology; a Pharm.D. What was she doing at a lecture in pure math research?"

Silence. Each agent on each team contemplated the answer to that question and came up with very few options.

Not for long.

"DiNozzo. Get me an address."

"On it, boss."

"David, I want a better picture of this woman," Don announced grimly. "Get hold of Professor Penfield. See if he's ever heard of this Dr. Levinger. See if the woman has a legitimate reason for being at that lecture."

"You'll have it, Don," David promised, picking up the phone and dialing.

***

 _What am I supposed to do now?_ This had gone way beyond serious, and way beyond what any self-respecting professor of mathematics ought to expect from life. Helping Don with some of his cases was fun—who wouldn't relish the opportunity to demonstrate yet again the value of having a decent set of numbers to have at your back?

This was not 'helping out' a government agency. This was smack dab in the _middle_ of the whole fiasco, and the sole positive on either side of the equation was that he didn't have Marshall Penfield at his side and he did have this guy McGee from NCIS. Despite his disclaimers of ineptitude and the seriousness of the situation, Charlie had been impressed with McGee's skill with a computer. _The man would have made a fine addition to some university's academic roster if he'd pursued the Ph.D. and gone into research. He still could—if we ever get out of this mess._

Instead, the tall man was lying on a sofa in their basement 'suite', leaking blood into the cushions. The sofa would have to be thrown out, Charlie thought wildly, knowing that it was a completely irrational idea to be occupying his brain. He couldn't help it; it was hard to regain his line of attack for the cipher.

Actually, it wasn't so hard. In fact, it was downright easy to plunge back into the numbers and escape from the reality of the situation. That way lay madness; Charlie was well aware of that. He had been down that road with PvNP. No, the real reason that Charlie had enough megabytes of brainpower left to worry about his new partner in crime was that the cipher had been solved. Charlie already knew what most of it said, and was only cleaning up the small details such as 'north' vs 'south' for the location of where someone was expecting to bring in a large shipment of biologicals. One of those details was exactly what the bio-agent was, whether it was anthrax or ebola or some other lethal concoction of viruses better left alone. The package wouldn't be particularly large, and that would make it all the more difficult to find among the millions of crates arriving through the U.S. borders every day. He _had_ to get this information to his brother, Don.

Charlie looked at the man on the sofa, noting uneasily that McGee's face was white and beaded with sweat. "Are you all right?"

Penfield-McGee managed a weak smile. "Not really." He shifted uncomfortably, trying to keep the expression of agony from reaching his face and failing miserably. "We have to get you away from here."

"Not without you," Charlie told him. "If they find out—"

"They'll eventually find out anyway," McGee cut him off. "It's only a matter of time, professor." He took a deep breath. "You need to escape." He glanced at the door to the 'suite' with a pointed expression, and kept his voice down. "They've stationed someone outside of the door, and I doubt that they'll let that lapse. The only way out is through that window." He pointed at the small panel of glass that looked up at the badly manicured lawn of green. "You need to go. Now."

"Yes, but—"

"No buts," McGee said firmly. He bit his lip, Charlie noticed, wondering just how bad the injury was. Their kidnappers had put a white bandage on it, but red had already leaked through and onto the sofa. Pain-killers hadn't been offered. "This is national security, Professor Eppes. We have to get you out of here before you finish deciphering the code."

No use in sharing that he'd cracked it, that only a few details remained for clarification. Charlie swallowed hard, searching the math for something that would allow him to argue with the NCIS agent, something that would permit him to demand that McGee accompany him. "I—"

The door opened. It wasn't loud, but it was unexpected and it shocked him as much as if he'd been able to provide a conclusive mathematical proof for Unified Field Theory.

Ms. Marple entered, followed by three of her people, all looming over her and looking decidedly annoyed.

It wasn't Charlie that they aimed for; it was 'Professor Penfield.'

Ms. Marple wasted no time. "Who are you?"

Charlie stood up in alarm. "He's Marsha—"

Ms. Marple held up her hand imperiously, not bothering to look at Charlie. She continued to glare at McGee. "Who. Are. You?"

No point in trying to hide. Clearly Charlie's new partner understood that. He managed a viciously victorious smile, crooked with pain though it was. "Special Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS."

One of Ms. Marple's henchmen looked at the other. "NCIS? What the hell agency is that?"

Some of the victory seeped away. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service," McGee offered grimly.

"Navy's got its own KP squad?"

Ms. Marple didn't bother to respond, and neither did McGee. Instead, she looked coldly at Charlie. "Have you completed the task?"

"No." It wasn't a lie. There were still some small pieces left.

"Think very carefully about your answer, Professor Eppes. This man's life depends on it." She indicated the NCIS agent lying helplessly on the sofa.

Charlie lifted his chin. It _wasn't_ a lie. "No. The task is not completed."

Charlie had never heard a man scream before, not in agony. He had heard Larry Fleinhardt scream in rage when an experiment failed to live up to its purported theory, had heard the occasional student screech in dismay over an exam, but never had he heard a man scream in pain. The nonsense that television and movies offered paled in comparison. This was true agony, the sound ripped from the throat of a man who didn't want to give it up.

"Stop! Stop it!"

The henchman eased up, removing his heavy hand from McGee's knee. Blood seeped more redly from the bandage, and McGee gasped, trying to inhale relief with the oxygen.

Charlie staggered, feeling sick at witnessing the scene. Ms. Marple shoved him onto the chair in front of a computer—it was McGee's, not Charlie's—and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up at her. "The next time you lie," she hissed, "I will have them put a bullet through his _other_ knee."

Charlie's tongue was thick. "Didn't… lie…" No, he couldn't throw up, not now, not in front of—

Ms. Marple shoved him from the chair, and his belly heaved. He couldn't help it; whatever had been left in his stomach erupted with a heavy helping of acid to burn his throat. He barely heard her next words.

"You have two hours, Professor Eppes, at which time I will begin to torture this NCIS agent until I get what I need. Two hours!"

* * *

It was a small studio apartment in the heart of one of the poorer sections of D.C., close to the entrance to the subway. Don wished that he'd had the time to be impressed with how quickly Gibbs had obtained the warrant to get in, but that would have to wait for a better day. At the moment, both teams had more important things to work on.

Don took the steps two at a time, Gibbs on his heels, both with handguns clasped in firm grasps. This was not just any raid. This was national security, never mind that there was a brotherly genius involved.

Gibbs seemed to feel the same way. The pair flattened themselves against the edges of the doorframe, the rest of their combined teams further down the hall and ready to provide back up. Don held up his hand with a silent count: three, two, one—

 _Blam!_ Gibbs kicked down the door with one over-powered foot.

"Federal agents!" Don yelled, barreling in and dropping to his knee in case someone got the bright idea to shoot back.

Not necessary. The place was empty. Don and Gibbs had the studio apartment cleared before the rest could hustle in after them. There was nothing to hide behind. There was only a single stuffed chair with a table beside it, and a set of two straight chairs with a small table to eat on in the entire apartment. A bed stood in the corner.

"Toss it," Gibbs ordered curtly, even as the group began to spread out to do just that.

"Empty closet," David reported. "No clothes, nothing."

"Bed hasn't been slept in."

"There are no dishes in the cabinets in the kitchen."

"A drop," Gibbs realized grimly. "This Dr. Levinger is involved somehow. Everyone, back off; let's get Forensics in here for prints and whatever else they can find."

"No time." Of that, Don was certain. "Look at this." He pointed to the small table, the cheap lamp overshadowing the fake wood surface. On the table was a small black device: a cell phone.

"Prints," Gibbs ordered. "DiNozzo."

"Got my kit, boss."

"We need to get this back to some place that we can work," Don realized. "Gibbs, this is a throwaway cell. We need to pull the numbers that this thing called and was called from."

"And we need to do it now," Gibbs agreed.

***

"Don't do it."

Charlie cringed. McGee—no sense in referring to his fellow captive as 'Penfield' any longer. The cat was out of the bag—was watching him, his face drawn with pain. The agent looked pale, too; blood loss, no doubt. Charlie was no expert in medical affairs, but he was afraid that Special Agent McGee might not live long enough to be tortured. A variation on Prisoner's Dilemma, Charlie thought wildly. Which scenario would yield the best outcome: torture or death?

This was the one time in his life that Charlie didn't want to do the math.

"Don't do what?"

"You don't lie very well. Even I can tell that." McGee shifted, let out a hiss when his leg objected in no uncertain terms.

"I can't let them—"

"You have no choice." McGee cut him off. "You can't let them have the information." He stared at Charlie. "You've solved it, haven't you?"

"No—"

"You lie worse than I do," McGee told him, "which is pretty bad. It's worse than bad, Professor Eppes, which means that we have to put an end to this right now."

"I can—"

"No, you can't." McGee was brusque. "Can you honestly stand there and tell me that you are going to be able to stand by and watch what they do? Honestly?"

Charlie couldn't look at his fellow captive. His voice was low. "No."

"Right." McGee didn't gloat over his victory, and Charlie was grateful for that much. McGee went on. "You have to get out of here. Now. Right now. Understand?"

"But—"

"There are no 'buts' about it, Professor Eppes." McGee was firm, despite the situation. "If they come in here again, they will have the information they need and thousands if not millions of Americans will die. We have," and McGee looked at his watch, "less than twenty minutes before our two hours are up. It's now or never, professor."

That led to the next problem. "How?" Charlie asked, trying not to sound plaintive. "There's not way I can break the window quietly, and trying to shimmy out will take too long. There's a man stationed outside the door. He'll hear me."

"Right." McGee had already solved that problem. "Here's what we're going to do."

***

There was at least a thousand calls made from the throwaway cell phone, and each one was listed on the screen in the bullpen of the NCIS headquarters. The screen held an incomprehensible cacophony of numbers.

Abby's voice floated in over the speaker phone. "Gibbs, I can track down these numbers but it looks like each one is different. I've already done the fast scan; only two are to the same numbers. All the rest is a jumble."

Don was grim. "It will take a hundred men ten hours to visit every address, and that's assuming that each call went to an address. Some of those will have gone to other cell phones, and those people could be anywhere. We don't have _time_ for this."

"This is where we usually call in Charlie," Colby said, equally as unhappy. "These are numbers; patterns. This is what he lives for."

David nodded. "He could search for the pattern in those numbers, see if anything pops up." He looked away. "Dammit, we could use Charlie right now!"

That triggered something in the two team leaders. They looked each other, light flickering in two sets of eyes.

"Penfield."

***

"Ready?" McGee almost whispered it.

Charlie nodded. He wasn't really ready, but they were rapidly running out of time. It was now or never. He raised the heavy mug that he'd liberated from the kitchenette. The mug was wrapped in a dish towel to try to muffle the sound as much as possible.

It worked. Standing on a chair, Charlie slammed the mug against the pane of glass, and the window shattered into more than a thousand pieces. He tossed the mug away, and hoisted himself up to the window, trying to ignore the sharp edges cutting into the palms of his hands.

The man outside the door to the suite heard the commotion. Shouting to his comrades upstairs, he tried to open the door.

McGee was prepared for that. With Charlie's help, he had limped over to the door—almost passing out twice on the way, but McGee would be happy to overlook that little setback—and shoved a chair underneath the doorknob, preventing the man from bursting in on them.

Not for long. The straight backed chair was flimsy, and collapsed under the onslaught. The door whipped open, destroying the chair into splinters to join the shattered glass on the floor. The man darted into the room.

McGee was ready for that, too. There was a second mug, and it was in McGee's fist and it wasn't covered with a dish towel. McGee brought the mug onto the man's head, and the kidnapper collapsed as if McGee had injected him with the same joy juice that had been used when bringing the pair of code-breakers here.

McGee looked up. Professor Eppes had slithered through the broken window. There were bleeding scratches across his torso, but that was secondary. "Go!"

"You—"

"I'll be fine," McGee lied. "I'm the closest thing they've got left for a cipher analyst. Go!"

Charlie ran.

***

Colby glowered at the man behind the one way glass. "I'd've killed him by now."

Ziva's glare was equally as daunting. "I agree. The man is a pig. He _whines._ "

The man in question was tall, with mousy brown hair that was slicked back out of his way. His sport jacket bore elbow pads and—worse—the elbow pads looked worn. The elbow pads looked _used._ There were spectacles for the eyes, but those were for show. Likewise for show was the large easel of paper with several nondescript equations scribbled on the top bearing equally as nondescript letters of a vaguely Greek origin. The laptop computer on the table in the interrogation room was humming frantically, its 'working' light flaring brightly enough to compare it to a star going nova as it attempted to keep up with the calculations required of it.

Tony DiNozzo had been elected to be the man's keeper. The pair outside the glass admired his self-control as he plastered the smile onto his face yet again. "I can almost see where you're going with that," he lied brightly.

Professor Marshall Penfield beamed. "Did you hear my lecture on Discrimination between Partial Populations? I _knew_ that there would be a practical application to this. Eppesey argued with me, but as you can see: I was right." He looked around. "Where's that computer technician you assigned to me? Why isn't he here yet? I can't do all the computer work myself. This is the important part, here on the paper."

"He was delayed." _Damn, doing a lot of lying today. If I tell this guy that he's actually tracking down the 'computer tech' who got himself kidnapped with 'Eppesey', he'll only throw a hissy fit._ "He'll be along soon, I'm sure."

"If he doesn't get here soon, we won't need him," Penfield sniped.

 _Really? Then why did you say that you needed him in the first place?_

"It's time for a map," Penfield said suddenly.

DiNozzo jerked around. "A map?"

"Yes. A map. What did you think that I said?" Testily.

"You think you know where they are?" DiNozzo grabbed the paper map from the corner of the room and spread it out onto the table in front of the mathematician. _Yes! This slice of life may be coming to a merciful end._

"Of course I don't know where they are! If I did, would we be going through all this foolishness?" Penfield snatched the map from DiNozzo's hands and twirled it around on the table so that it was facing him instead of DiNozzo. "I need push pins. How can I designate the addresses if I don't have push pins?"

"Right here." DiNozzo was prepared. He placed the laptop onto the table beside the map, using its weight to hold down one paper end and positioning the screen so that the coordinates were visible.

Penfield tried to insert a pin onto the map, using the table as the background. Unfortunately, the table was a hard surface used to the banging about of perpetrators and low life types, and refused to allow anything as miniscule as a push pin to gain purchase on its stained table top surface. "It doesn't work."

"Here. Let me try." DiNozzo pushed at the pin, with as little luck.

"I need a cork board," Penfield announced. "Something that I can push these pins into. Get me a cork board."

"We don't have them here in NCIS headquarters," DiNozzo said, trying to stay patient and calm. "We haven't used them for ten years."

"Well, go and get one! For heaven's sake, we're trying to save Eppes's life here, man! We can't let something as foolish as a cork board stand in the way of a man's life, can we?"

"I've seen worse things," DiNozzo muttered under his breath, knowing that even under the best circumstances it would take someone at least half an hour to run out to the nearest office supply store and hope that they had a large cork board in stock. He forced the hopeful smile back onto his features, ignoring the fact that the expression wouldn't come anywhere close to his eyes. _Penfield won't notice,_ he rationalized. "Tell you what: let's use this yellow highlighter. We'll just mark up the map like this—"

"You've ruined it!" Penfield all but shrieked. "Do you realize that we can never use this map again? Not with these marks on it! You've wasted it! Think of all the trees that died to make this map!"

"Name one—" DiNozzo started to snap back before catching himself. _And I thought McGeek was bad._ "It's all right, professor. We can get another one, and we'll recycle this paper when we're through with it. Look," he cajoled, swiveling the map around so that he could view it himself, "we've got this one spot marked. How about another?"

Penfield sniffed. "Fourth and Vine. That's assuming this map is accurate."

 _That's assuming your_ calculations _are accurate. Is Professor Eppes this bad? I give the FBI team a lot of credit for self-control if he is._ "We'll do the best we can," DiNozzo said, trying to ooze reassurance. "How about the next one?"

Bit by bit, DiNozzo cozened Penfield into applying the details of what he had learned onto the paper map of D.C. and the surrounding suburbs. There were false markings and plenty of Penfield-sized screeches when a mistake was made—obviously all due to DiNozzo's incompetence, for Penfield was clearly too brilliant to make an error—but slowly the yellow marks began to take on a distinct pattern.

"It's looking like—"

"No, it isn't," Penfield told him in no uncertain terms. "More data! More data! That's what _I_ always say. You can never go wrong with more data. Add 1434 Union St," he instructed.

A shadow darkened the table with the map, and DiNozzo looked up, prepared to be grateful to whoever was interrupting his odious task. Two shadows, actually; both Gibbs and Special Agent Eppes were intervening.

"Got anything, DiNozzo?"

"No, he doesn't," Penfield told them testily. " _I_ do. Look: these markings are clustered near Furlong Ave. _And_ Fourth St. _And_ Long Street, and half a dozen other equally probable locations. We've plotted the sites to which the calls were made, Special Agent Gibbs. A number of them were to areas in western states, and those I've jotted down on this paper over here, in case we need to expand our search area, but—"

"No, wait." Don stared at the scattering of yellow dots on the paper map of D.C. and the surrounding area. Something squirmed inside his brain, reminding him of something that his geeky brother had told him. How long ago had it been? Hadn't it been sometime when Charlie had first demonstrated how math could help nail a perp? Something about vector analysis?

"There simply isn't enough data," Penfield complained. "Each of these sites has nothing to recommend it over the others; the quantity of calls made to those sites is equivalent in every way. I simply cannot give you more accuracy if you do not give me more data points to work with."

"Eppes?" Gibbs knew that his counterpart was onto something.

Don touched the map, letting his finger slide from mark to mark, skimming the yellow points that showed where each call from Dr. Levinger's throwaway cell had gone to. The highlighted sites were in a roughly oblong shape, a cloud of yellow dotting a suburban area in one corner of the map. Don tried to imagine what the neighborhood looked like, drinking in the meager details that the map provided: a slender line of blue indicated a finger of the Potamac lurked nearby. The roads on the map in this corner were relatively sparse, which meant that the area was either an upscale neighborhood with a lot of property for the ultra-expensive capitol region or that it was more rural and further away from D.C. than it looked like on this map. Neither scenario helped; the dots were—to use a term better suited to emergence from Charlie's mouth—rather equidistant from each other, positioned in a rough oval.

It touched a chord. There was something here, something that was screaming, 'notice me! Notice me!" There was an answer, if only he could see it—there!

 _It was Charlie. It was Charlie, standing in Don's own office, stabbing his finger at a map plastered onto an electronic screen, pointing out how to determine the location of the unknown. It was Charlie using the example of a sprinkler: "You can see the droplets of water," he had said, "and you can see where they land. By knowing where they land, you can determine from where they originated." Then Charlie had gone on to the really important piece: "You can determine where the suspect—"_

Don cut the thought off right there. "Vector analysis," he said.

Penfield's ears perked up. "Vector anal—" He broke off, interrupting himself. "Don't be absurd, Eppes. That's just like something that your brother would say. There are far better ways to handle this puzzle. Get out of my way," he ordered, pushing Don back even though neither Don nor anyone else in the room was obstructing the two inch path between the mathematician and the table with the map. "Get out of my way," he repeated querulously. "I have work to do." He bent down to the map once again, snatching the laptop with the calculations from DiNozzo's grasp.

Outside the window, Ziva observed the scene, glowering. "Can he do this?" she asked Colby. "Can he actually find McGee and your consultant?"

Colby shrugged grimly. "He's no Charlie Eppes."

* * *

"After him!" Ms. Marple snarled. "He doesn't know this area. We can't let him escape!" She advanced on McGee, fire in her eye. "I should kill you."

McGee steeled himself. Damn, but his leg hurt, and it hurt all the more the closer that those ham hands came to applying more pain! "But you won't," he made himself say calmly. "You need me. You need me in case you do find him," he went on. _Odd way to plead for your life, Tim. Wouldn't Tony be laughing his ass off if he heard me?_ McGee offered a crooked smile. "Of course, I'm also the only one who can handle the computer that he was using. Or am I mistaken that the bunch of you wouldn't know a gigabyte from an Ethernet cable?"

Ms. Marple stared at him, calculations whirling inside her head. McGee had seen sharks with more warmth in their face than this woman.

Ms. Marple continued to regard the situation, fury giving way to cold hard decision-making. "Go," she ordered her people. "Find him. Eppes has seen us, each and every one of us. If he identifies us to the authorities, we can be executed for treason," she told them.

It was more than enough incentive. All of them wheeled on a dime and dashed up the stairs, heading toward the outside world to track down one missing genius.

Then Ms. Marple turned back to her captive. "You have one hour," she told him, "to convince me that you're worth more alive than dead. After that, I will be cutting my losses. I leave you to imagine what that entails," she added as she locked the door behind her.

***

Numbers had always been the overriding priority in Charlie's life, but the mind-numbing bliss of setting foot to ground, step after step, had been a certain joy in itself. After a long run, distance calculated to the nth degree and then correlated to the time spent, he always felt as though he was one with nature; that he _was_ the wind. _Healthy minds, healthy bodies_ had been the mantra of one of his professors, so long ago that he couldn't remember which one—or had it been his father?

At the moment, the identity of the speaker was unimportant. Charlie blessed the hours that he'd spent honing his body. Perhaps it hadn't been to the same extent that he'd exercised his mind, but that was water under the bridge and the quantity yet to be estimated. The real test would be whether or not he was able to escape from his captors and, equally as important to Charlie's way of thinking, if he would be able to summon help in time to save the NCIS agent whose Penfield façade had been unmasked.

True courage, that was what Special Agent McGee had displayed. It was courage as great as Charlie's brother Don possessed; cut from the same mold. McGee had insisted that Charlie escape, leaving the NCIS agent behind, in order to protect the country. Don would have done that, Charlie realized. David and Colby would, too.

And now it was time for Charlie to demonstrate that he could do the right thing as well, and not in an ivory tower. It was time to show that while Don and his team were listening to Charlie and his numbers, Charlie himself was paying attention to how the real heroes got the dirt off of the streets. Charlie's task now was to get to a source of help so that he could send back reinforcements to rescue McGee.

The neighborhood that he found himself in just barely qualified as suburban. The houses were huge, and Los Angeles would easily put four houses or more onto each lot that he dashed past. This was an area with a lot of money, Charlie realized, especially considering that the D.C. area was as expensive as any in the country. The roads themselves were paved but there were no sidewalks and no indication that anyone wanted any. This was territory for the obscenely rich who wanted their space and who could pay to have it.

A shout echoed from behind; his escape had been discovered! Charlie shook forth another spurt of speed, cursing under his breath. They'd hoped that he would have at least another five minutes before anyone at the house would realize that they were missing a valued 'employee'. Someone on the floor above must have heard the commotion, quiet though they had been.

No help for it now. Charlie hadn't a clue as to which way he ought to head, no idea in which direction lay help. He'd settle for anyone in authority, even a beat cop with a radio to call in a report of a crazy lunatic babbling about secret codes and national security.

He scanned the horizon frantically, searching for help. There was no one. Ms. Marple had picked her hideout well, Charlie realized bitterly. Even an escape attempt such as this had been anticipated. This wasn't a place with a meter maid on every corner or even a snitch to phone in a tip for a reward of a sawbuck. Charlie could run for a mile or more before he saw a face not associated with his captors.

There wasn't anything he could do about it; Professor Eppes hadn't been consulted as to the location of his captivity. His only option: run!

No, wait…he had choices. There were alternatives. Charlie put his feet on automatic and began to rank the possibilities in order of probability of success. He could try to knock on someone's door: low success rate. Most of these places were likely empty during the day, and anyone who was home would simply shriek in fear at the thought of armed kidnappers bearing down on them. Nope; that was out.

He could run straight down the street; also with a low chance of getting out of this alive. His captors had guns, and the speed of the average bullet fired from even a low velocity handgun would be at least 180 meters per second. Charlie tossed a glance over his shoulder; those didn't look like handguns being lugged along by his pursuers, and the speed of the bullets was more likely to be in the neighborhood of 2300 meters per second, which meant that Charlie could expect—

 _Yow!_ Charlie darted to one side, feeling more than hearing the tiny projectile whistle past his ear. _Okay, better think a little faster. Put those genius brains to work before someone puts a new hole in my head._ Charlie cast around frantically for a ploy that would give him more lifespan than the half life of a meson, and found precious little.

Trees, he decided, abruptly changing direction. Just in time, too—another bullet almost gave him a new part in his hair. He yelped, and darted toward his new objective: the heavily forested ground beyond the last mansion. The underbrush would slow him down, but it would also slow down the pursuit with the added advantage that the bullets would be stopped by the trees.

It wasn't a _good_ option, but it was his _best._ Charlie dashed into the forested acreage, feeling the fallen twigs snap beneath each frantic step. An angry shout from behind told him that it had a good effect; the pursuit also recognized how difficult it would be to stop him, now that the trees blocked any line of sight bullets. The foliage would help to cover his tracks, would shield him from view, and Charlie's chances of escape were increasing with every step. The twigs were noisy, but that didn't matter. The men behind him were just as loud, and their own heavy treads covered the sounds from ahead. If they were to stop to listen, Charlie would simply move that much farther ahead.

There was a break in the trees, and Charlie tried to see what it was. Whatever it was, wasn't good. A break in the trees would give the pursuit a wonderful chance to take aim at the broad side of his back—no! It was a streak of luck!

It wasn't just a break in the trees, but a slender river. It was a river with flowing water, something that he could swim and move out of the area much more quickly. It was wet, and it was cool, and it represented a better chance of escape than anything he could see. The water had carved a slender embankment into the rocky soil, leaving a three foot cliff to dive from.

 _Prism effect: the change in medium—in this case, from air to water—leads to a distortion of light secondary to refraction, thus reducing the probability of accuracy of target shooting by a percentage directly correlated to the diffraction coefficient of the media involved._

Which meant that not only would the water carry him away much more swiftly, but if he swam underwater then their aim would be off as well. No time to wait: Charlie dove into the water, feeling the chill ram through his entire frame. Liquid rushed around him, carrying him down and then upward for another gasp of fresh air.

It wasn't until after the shock of the cold water wore off that he realized that it wasn't the cold water that he felt.

He'd been hit.

***

Gibbs stared at the map dotted with yellow marks. There was a pattern there, but damned if he could pinpoint it to an exact location and he could tell just by looking at him that Eppes felt the same way. Not one muscle jumped, but there was tension coiled in those nerves. "We can't wait," he realized.

"How far away is this?" Eppes was thinking the same thing: get physically closer, so that when the answer came in they'd be ready to pounce.

Professor Penfield adjusted his position around the map, peering at the same yellow marks. "You didn't put this one in the right place," he complained. "Do I have to do everything myself? Here, give me that computer. You're too slow, man!" he told DiNozzo. "There's a man's life at stake here, and you're pecking away at this keyboard as though you were swimming underwater." He snatched the laptop from where DiNozzo was trying to enter the locations that they'd identified earlier in order to use the map spread out over the table.

The rest of the two teams were spread around the edges of the room, fear seeping from them like jelly oozing from a broken jar. Ziva's face was expressionless, but Gibbs expected nothing less from the Mossad agent. Of the FBI team, Sinclair too kept his emotions in check—a good man to go undercover, Gibbs thought. A good man to have at his back. The other one—Colby Granger was the name—him, Gibbs wanted on his offensive line protecting the quarterback. Flanking the enemy would be another good use of the agent's skills, with DiNozzo on the opposite flank.

Gibbs made the decision. "Get Abby up here," he ordered. "Professor Penfield, when you have an answer— _any_ answer, no matter how vague—you tell Abby, and Abby will get it to us. Move out," he commanded.

No one needed a second invitation.

***

 _Down to the wire._

That was the phrase: down to the wire. There were worse things in life for a writer to leave this world with, McGee tried to tell himself. To go out with a cliché on his mind was—

Who was he kidding? A cliché? He'd rather go with a terminal case of writer's block, which was what was going to happen in…McGee glanced at the clock on the wall. Three minutes. That was all that was left of the hour that Ms. Marple gave him after they discovered that Professor Eppes had escaped.

 _With my help; let's not forget that,_ McGee told himself. Single-handedly, McGee had just saved a substantial portion of the free world. By removing the genius portion of the kidnapped booty from Ms. Marple's grasp, he'd prevented them from decoding the message that would tell the highest bidder when and where to take possession of whatever was coming into the United States to wreak havoc and fear. McGee wouldn't let Professor Eppes tell him what it was—if McGee didn't know, it couldn't be tortured out of him.

Wow. Torture. McGee hadn't even put anything like that into his fiction, let alone face it in real life.

This _was_ real life. This wasn't fiction, a story out of his imagination, where torture could be erased with a single brief paragraph detailing an hour or two with the friendly folks at the local emergency department. This wasn't a fairy tale where Timmy McGee was going to crack jokes about a broken wing in a sling.

This was fuckin' _real._ And if he didn't want to believe it, there was a huge hole in his leg to remind him of just how real it really was. It was a hole in his leg that _hurt_ to the point that he was unable to think, unable to even make a pretense of working on the little laptop with its little spreadsheets with blinking letters dancing from cell to cell. Not that it mattered; Professor Eppes had stored his data under a password that McGee didn't know. 'You can figure it out if you really need it,' Eppes had said, shortly before McGee had set him free. 'That will protect you, if anything can. They won't be able to retrieve the code analysis without you.'

McGee morosely tried to inspect his wound from a distance, fearing that any attempt at physical manipulation would wrench a scream from his vocal chords. He couldn't see much under the ripped pants, but the angry redness seemed to suggest that the thing was already infected. _If this goes on much longer, gangrene will set in._

Who am I kidding? I'm not going to live that long.

McGee glanced at the clock one more time.

His hour was up.

***

 _Cold._

He wasn't even shivering any more. He was well beyond the point where he had the strength to tremble.

How had he gotten to this state of affairs? Professor Charles Eppes was a world class mathematician, raking in the honors and accolades along with coming up with a few earth-shattering theories along the way. He'd just flown in to deliver a lecture to some of the world's top minds, for heaven's sake! Ending up a bullet-ridden corpse floating in a creek simply wasn't commensurate with his overall place in the scheme of things. It flew in the face of cosmic justice. It was…humiliating.

It also hurt. Not too much, and that would have frightened him if he'd had the energy to be scared. The cold creek water had numbed him to the point that he couldn't even tell where he'd been hit by whichever bullet or bullets had done the deed. It was the cold water that had done the numbing, Charlie told himself. It couldn't possibly be the fact that his life's blood was seeping away to mix invisibly with the creek water.

Don would find him. His big brother had always looked out for him when they were kids. Sure, they'd drifted apart, but they were family, right? Yeah, they were in different fields, but both were making the effort to connect. They didn't talk much, not about feelings and relationships and stuff like that, but they didn't need to. Don would find him.

Who was Charlie kidding? Don could pull in all the help he wanted—probably would. That code that Charlie had been working on was worth more than Charlie himself—but there was precious little to point anyone in this direction. It would take time to traipse through these woods, hunting for a damaged mathematician. One generally didn't find mathematicians in the forest. No one would ever think to look for Marshall Penfield in these surroundings.

 _Penfield._ Without Charlie there to defend his research, Penfield would run free in his attempts to debunk the Eppes Convergence. Penfield's rebuttals in the academic journals would go unchallenged—Amita was a superior mathematician in her own right, but her area of expertise was combinatorics—and the world of math would be wrongfully steered away from Charlie's contributions.

 _I have to stop him. I have to stop Penfield from setting the academic community back by a decade or two, if not more!_

Charlie grabbed onto a passing root extending itself into the creek, and hung on.

* * *

The D.C. suburbs looked like an entirely different sort of country from either L.A. or even New Mexico where Don Eppes had cut his eye teeth on Fugitive Recovery. It made sense; it was an entirely different part of the country. It wasn't desert like New Mexico, not even the rugged mountains with the scrub brush that gave the area its own sort of beauty. There wasn't a palm tree in sight, no transplanted trees trying to eke out a living in the arid soil along the Pacific coastline such as L.A. boasted.

No, this territory had a lush sort of greenery that had supported fertile plantations back when such things held more value than twelve story buildings. The trees were tall and thick with the kind of limbs that told of centuries of growth. This spoke of permanence that the West Coast had yet to discover. The soil on the side of the road was dark and rich with autumn leaves churned into mulch to keep it productive of the green foliage that the trees draped overhead to cover the roads. The air held the scent of flowing water somewhere nearby.

Don couldn't rightly call it suburbs, either; they had passed beyond the carefully planned tracts of cookie-cutter housing onto something that didn't quite qualify as country roads but would within a mile or two if someone wasn't careful and bought up the place.

He sure as hell hoped that Special Agent Gibbs knew where he was going. Gibbs seemed like a man to be trusted, a man that Don himself would like to have on his own team or even would follow, but this was _Charlie._ This was his geeky little brother, the one whose nose could always be seen beyond the chain link fence at Don's Little League practice sessions, clipboard in hand, keeping statistics as though Don was a player in the nationals. _Geek,_ Don had always thought, and had ignored the little swell of pride inside that came from someone showing that they thought that Don was hot stuff.

He also sure as hell hoped that Special Agent Gibbs could get them where ever they were going in one piece. The man drove worse than Charlie. It was a toss up as to whether they'd bounced off of that tree or whether it was merely a jerk to the wheel that threw Don from one side of the car to the other.

Didn't matter. What did matter was getting to Charlie and the NCIS agent before the code was broken. Don supposed that the NCIS agent would be able to hold out, but he was under no illusions that Charlie could stand up to more than five minutes of what could be dished up. It had been a stroke of luck that the kidnappers had mistaken Agent McGee for Penfield. Penfield would have folded even more quickly.

Not enough. Charlie had already demonstrated over his career that ciphers were like honey to flies. His brother would be forced to crack it, and hand it over to someone who didn't have America's best interests to heart. There were only two ways to stop that from happening, and the FBI and the NCIS were currently working on one of them.

The other would be to kill Charlie. If the NCIS agent was any kind of man, he'd have considered it. He would kill Charlie in order to spare him the torture that would lie in his future.

This could all be too late.

Don refused to acknowledge that possibility. If the kidnappers had lost their source of code-busting, they would have closed up shop and slipped away into the night. The underground bidding for the rights to the message would have stopped, and the intelligence world would have breathed a sigh of relief. The chatter, however, continued, all of which meant that Charlie was still alive, still working on the code, hoping that his brother would pull out one more home run before the third strike in the bottom of the ninth.

The roads turned into meager two lane paths with the occasional ditch on the side of the road to carry away excess water. It felt almost wrong to Don, who had grown up in the desert territory surrounding Los Angeles. The air felt humid, but ripe with the scent of growing things. There were stone fences that stood tall against the edges of the roads, protecting large mansions rising above toward the sky. Don didn't see how they'd be able to tell where Charlie and the NCIS agent were, but this was where his gut told him it would be. He scanned the large homesteads, wishing that there would be some sort of signal. There could be: Charlie could have dangled a small white piece of clothing from a window in a forlorn attempt to send up a signal.

That one. That mansion over there, on the right. There was nothing to suggest that Charlie and the NCIS agent were inside, nothing to distinguish it from any of the other thirty mansions within a five mile radius, but something inside was shrieking, "There! There! Stop right now! There!"

Gibbs's gut was telling him the same thing, because the man slowed the car down to a crawl, eying each mansion as though he could tell if it held the guilty parties just by looking. Behind them, the second car carrying Colby and Officer David coasted to a stop behind them.

"Boss?" It was DiNozzo, his eyes likewise scanning the three story abode.

"Call it in, DiNozzo." Gibbs could have been commenting on the weather. Don wasn't fooled.

DiNozzo did so. "Need to know the owner, Abbs." He named the address, trusting Goth Girl on the other end to run the computer d-base.

It didn't take long. Goth Girl, despite her appearance, could handle a simple computer query. DiNozzo transmitted the information. "Belongs to a Dr. and Mrs. Hector Michaelson."

"Michaelson." Don latched onto the name.

Gibbs too remembered the target. "Dr. Helen Michaelson Levinger." He shoved the car door open. "Want to bet that there's a connection?"

David Sinclair scrambled out of the back seat. "Call for a warrant?"

"No time," Don said grimly. "It can follow us in."

"Doesn't need to," Gibbs added. "Damn tough to tell when it's a cat in heat around here, or whether it's someone calling for help." Cold blue eyes dared Don to argue.

As if Don would. Sinclair, perhaps, but Don knew better. His gut knew better. "The gate's open," he said, putting away a slender wand of metal that had just finished exploring the lock on the gate. "Careless of someone, leaving these things open."

"Big place." Gibbs assessed the territory, looking for the entrances in and out, looking for avenues for escape. "Six of us."

There was a question there: _I know my people. Can yours handle an operation like this?_

It _felt_ right. It felt as though the two teams had been working together for years instead of hours. Don _knew_ what Gibbs's people were capable of, just as well as he knew his own team. He issued orders. "Sinclair, take the left. Colby, scout out the back; keep anyone from hightailing it out of there."

Gibbs clearly felt the same way. "DiNozzo, take the right. Ziva, on my six."

The three melted into the brush to encircle the mansion. Don took a badly needed moment to scan the target.

The mansion was occupied; it wasn't just the well-trimmed hedges but the trash cans tucked neatly into a wooden shed along the side where DiNozzo had disappeared. Those trash cans bore the remains of food and the detritus of modern life. A forlorn corner of a newspaper stuck up above the rest, and Don thought that it looked like **The Washington Post**.

Ziva David slipped up along the front to peer in past the drapes to the parlor inside. Empty, she mouthed.

Don nodded. A stroke of luck. He turned to make certain that the front door was as unlocked as the gate, and found that Gibbs—putting away his own lock pick—had already determined that it was.

Still needed to be silent. The front door cooperated, swinging back on well-oiled hinges. Gun in hand, Don slipped into the foyer, Gibbs on his heels.

More signs that the place was in use: today's edition of **The Washington Post** sat on the coffee table in the room beyond, a coffee mug on a marble coaster next to it. The owner had clearly set the cup down and gone in search of something else.

Don could just bet what that something else was. He listened, and heard the sounds of movement coming this way.

Gibbs gestured to the Israeli woman. A cold light entered her eye, and she moved to the edge of the inner doorway.

A large man stepped in. He caught sight of the two team leaders, and his eyes widened. "Hey—"

She used her hands, and the man slumped silently to the floor. Don chanced a nervous look: out cold but still breathing. He eyed Officer David with respect; here was more evidence regarding the level of training that Mossad handed out.

No time for that; Don had spotted something else, and he pounced on it. Next to the mug lay a leather wallet, and it looked familiar. Don opened it up and found that his instincts had been correct: a driver's license with Charlie's features stared up at him. Nothing appeared to be missing, the credit cards intact along with several bills, but its very presence in this house confirmed their suspicions. He showed the picture to Gibbs.

Gibbs moved in to whisper in Don's ear. "We need to take them out quietly. One mistake, and we'll have two dead hostages."

Don nodded. The NCIS team leader was correct. Losing a national treasure and a Federal agent was something to be avoided, never mind the shared DNA or a missing cipher. He glanced at his watch, knowing that by now his team and Gibbs's other agent would be in place to prevent any hasty retreats by the inhabitants.

Time to put recovery techniques into play: Don held his breath, listening, knowing that both Gibbs and Officer David were doing the same thing. There were several small noises chattering through the mansion, typical living sounds. There was a gentle creaking as two—no, three people moved down the staircase in the back of the house. Wind whistled past the pane in a window, and the smell of something baked suggested that the window was in the kitchen.

There were more sounds of people upstairs, enough stray noises to suggest that there were more than three. Footsteps moved back and forth across carpeted floors, in more than one spot.

Don identified the action: they were moving out. Somehow this bunch had become aware that the FBI and NCIS were close on their tails, and were preparing to move to a new location to prevent exactly what Don and Gibbs were intending at this very moment. Tough; Don had a consultant to recover, and moving to another location wasn't going to happen.

It also gave credence to the concept of a mole somewhere in the FBI, or how else could this bunch have determined that the end was near? There had to be a reason that they were packing up, and that was the best one that Don could think of for the moment. Of course, let Don get hold of these bozos, and he'd be happy to confirm his suspicion.

Upstairs or down? Where were they holding Charlie and the NCIS agent? Don listened a moment longer, hoping for a clue, and wasn't rewarded. People were moving, but there were no words that Don could hear, nothing to suggest the cadences of a man accustomed to public speaking.

The noises told Don that they ought to go upstairs. There were more people up there, which meant it was more likely that upstairs was where the captives were being held. It was also the place where they could take down more suspects, to prevent one of them from escaping.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that it was the wrong move. Something was screaming at him that he needed to head downstairs, and that he needed to do it now.

By the look of him, Gibbs had the same gut feeling, which only intensified Don's own. They couldn't, however, go downstairs and leave Officer David on her own to scope out the upstairs crowd—although the look on the woman's face suggested that she wouldn't mind the exercise and might even enjoy it.

No, not going to happen. They had identified the hot spots, and they needed to pull in the rest of the two teams in order to hit both spots at the same time.

Silent hand signals sufficed; Don got there first and put Sinclair in charge of the integrated team. The senior FBI agent would lead the other three upstairs with the goal of silently taking down any and all, and if they ran across a tied up consultant or NCIS agent, they would be at liberty to rescue them as well.

Don couldn't shake the feeling that his brother was not upstairs, and he was about to trust his gut. The captives were in the basement. That was what his gut said, and that was what he was going to act upon.

Gibbs agreed. The four agents nodded, and slipped upstairs, Colby grimacing as a single tread creaked beneath him.

Nothing to do about that now. He and Gibbs pussy-footed through the kitchen and down the hall, aiming for the open door that led to the staircase leading down.  
The staircase had been rough-hewn but someone in the past decade had decided that bare planks weren't good enough for the house and had tacked up some wallboard and then finished the job by splashing on some paint. They hadn't bothered to do anything with the bare bulb over head, but Don's eyes, once they'd become accustomed to the dim light, saw a well-vacuumed carpet on each tread and the same carpeting along the hall that led deep into the subterranean level of the mansion.

He carefully placed each foot on the outer edge of the step, trusting that it would be less likely to creak and give away their presence. Gibbs copied his moves, staying two steps behind, gun in hand.

There were voices up ahead, quiet but still distinguishable. One was female: Dr. Levenger? Don thought it very possible. He held his breath and listened.  
The voices came from a room off of the hallway, and the door was open. They would have to go in one after the other, presenting a single front. Not the best plan of attack; it would be too easy for one of the suspects to grab a hostage and put a knife or gun to a throat. There would be two dead hostages, a crowd of dead kidnappers, and no cipher recovered. Don and Gibbs needed a crossfire, and there wasn't any real way to get it.

He communicated that with silent fingers, relieved to find that Gibbs understood exactly what he was saying and that he shared his concern. Don frowned. How were they going to do this? He raised his eyebrows, asking the question.

***

 _'Tis a far, far better thing that I do…_

Crap. Couldn't he think of his own exit line, something original, instead of quoting Dickens? Apparently not, because his wits would only come up with gibberish before wandering back to a far, far better thing.

Ms. Marple stood in front of McGee; towering over him, actually, since he had collapsed onto the sofa in the work area, the laptop precariously perched beside him. McGee peered up at her blearily, the sight of her wobbling in and out of his ability to perceive. Infection, he diagnosed. Fever dreams, the same fever that was preventing him from opening up Professor Eppes's files to determine the results of the deciphering process. Maybe she was a figment of a fever dream, too. McGee could always hope.

Maybe this was all for the best. He _hurt,_ more than he'd ever hurt before. His leg throbbed, every heartbeat sending more waves of pain from his knee up through his waist to ebb away by his neck so that his headache could take over. He could barely see anything through the agony. Ending his torture with a swift bullet or whatever his kidnapper intended might not be the worst thing to occur.

He should have known that something like this would happen. He'd been so ecstatic when chance allowed him the dream of a lifetime, to sit in on an after-hours debate between the top minds of the century. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Einstein, Fibonacci, and LaGrange had been miraculously revived from the dead to join the discussion.

McGee should have known that such a wonderful opportunity would be followed by something equally as dire. The world had to remain in balance, and a painful death was the only thing that would come close to equality. He sighed, and squinted up at the author of his impending doom.

"Give me the code."

McGee blinked. He could have sworn that Ms. Marple's voice was accompanied by violins—no, maybe cellos. The undertones were too deep to be violins, though perhaps a viola could manage it. Slightly off tune, too. Flat. Definitely flat. He blinked again.

She slapped him. "Pay attention!" she snarled. "Wake up!"

McGee blinked again, and this time sense penetrated his foggy mind. "Ow." It was followed by a wince, as his leg indicated that movement remained out of the question.

"Give me the code!" Ms. Marple repeated, "or you're a dead man."

McGee managed a feeble smile. "Sorry. Haven't got it."

Ms. Marple turned to one of the two men behind her—or was there just one, and McGee seeing double? Didn't matter, McGee decided. It only took one handgun to do the job, and each of them was holding something large enough to qualify as a cannon. Ziva would be able to identify the exact make and model of the gun, McGee realized. Not McGee. Of course, he could always pretend that he did, since it wouldn't make any difference after he was dead. Ducky wouldn't be able to determine otherwise during the autopsy. Likewise, Ducky wouldn't be able to pull the last words that McGee ever heard out of his dead ears, either, and certainly not his brain. _'Tis a far, far better thing…_

"Kill him."

* * *

Keeping close watch on three agents, two of whom were from a different agency, was normally a challenge.

Not in this case. David Sinclair could read the thoughts in every person there. Colby, he knew: the man would bolt after a fleeing suspect but was a good man to have at his side. Tony DiNozzo was Gibbs's number two man and accustomed to giving orders—and equally accustomed to taking them. He would follow Sinclair's instructions since he'd been told to by his boss, but should Sinclair falter DiNozzo would have no hesitation in stepping in. DiNozzo would play it by the book but only until he decided that he didn't like the plot.

Ziva David would be another story. Sinclair had heard about this type of Mossad officer, and a part of him wondered how Gibbs had managed to tame her to this level. A lethal killing machine—Sinclair had met one during his time in the Middle East. They trained from childhood to survive in a land where every hand was raised against them, the first line of defense against the hordes who wanted them dead. She would follow orders, but what orders had she been given? Who was giving the orders: Sinclair, Gibbs, or a handler back home?

Too many questions, and too many extraneous thoughts would get him killed. Sinclair pulled his mind back to the task at hand: take down each of the men upstairs and do it _quietly._ Noise could get Charlie killed.

First room. Sinclair listened, watching the others do the same. One man inside, the footsteps too heavy to be a woman's, not unless she weighed three hundred pounds or more. A singleton, then; Sinclair motioned for Colby and DiNozzo to do the honors.

Colby went first. Lightly, on his toes, he slipped up behind the man who had just finished putting a tee shirt into a duffel bag. One hand went over the mouth, the other around the neck to cut off the air. DiNozzo helped lower the unconscious man silently to the carpeted floor, snapping a set of handcuffs around ever so deserving wrists and stuffing the man's mouth full of a gag to keep him quiet.

Sinclair couldn't wait to see more. Ziva had moved on to the next room, and this one held three men. Only one was moving, putting his own clothing into a duffel. The other two lounged on the bed, watching idly and killing time. All three were big, bigger than Sinclair and certainly outweighing Ziva by a hundred pounds or more.

Wait, Sinclair signaled. They'd need Colby and DiNozzo—

She didn't, and it took only a bare instant for Sinclair to see why. A mirror, attached to a dresser, had reflected their image in the hall, and one of the men was opening his mouth to sound the alarm.

Ziva dove straight for him. Afterward, Sinclair would never be able to tell what she did, but the cry dwindled to a gurgle in his throat, and the man collapsed, clutching himself. She turned on the second, intent on rendering him into the same state.

Sinclair couldn't wait. He went for the third man, opting for a straight punch toward the nose.

The man dodged, blocked the blow, and returned his own left hook.

Instinct kicked in, instincts honed on the back streets and alleyways as kid and tuned to perfection in the training rooms at Quantico. Block. Jab to the ribs. Knock the breath out, then palm strike to the jaw. Sinclair had to grab the man to ease him to the floor; the noise would have alerted anyone else in the house.

DiNozzo appeared at the doorway, Colby behind him. Raised eyebrows: _everyone okay?_

Cocked head from Ziva: _I'm insulted that you even asked._

Sinclair gestured to them. _Check out the rest of the rooms. Where's Charlie, and your man?_

Colby nodded, moving up the hallway, DiNozzo in his wake. Sinclair finished tying up his man, yanking down the curtain pulls to finish the job and handing the remainder of the cord to his new partner to immobilize the other two.

DiNozzo reappeared. "Secure," he reported in a stage whisper. "They've got a small arsenal in the far bedroom up here. Granger is locking it down. No sign of McGee or the professor."

Sinclair acknowledged the intel, and delegated. "Officer David, finish putting these suspects on ice and help Granger secure the evidence. DiNozzo, you and I will back up Eppes and Gibbs."

***

Neither one knew which man gave the signal. It wasn't needed; both men reacted as though they'd been partners for years instead of minutes.

Gibbs was the larger man, with the greater power. He dove through the door, coming up from a shoulder roll with his handgun snapped into a two-handed grip. Eppes, smaller and better able to dodge, darted to the left in order to better cover the room.

"Freeze! Federal agents!"

Gibbs saw it first, saw the trigger finger already in motion, saw the handgun aimed at McGee lying helpless on the sofa. There were two men, both of whom had handguns but only one ready to kill the hostage. He also saw the woman—Dr. Levenger, he knew—in Gibbs's line of fire. That she would be hit, wasn't his concern. She wasn't an innocent bystander. But the slug going through flesh would throw off his aim. McGee would still be dead, and there wasn't a damn thing that Gibbs could do to prevent it.

Another flash; Eppes fired, the sound rocketing through the house like a firecracker. The man screamed, the sound turning into anguish as the bullet tore through flesh. The man dropped the gun from bloody fingers, staggering back to collapse against the wall. Eppes moved in, shoving the handgun out of reach with a booted toe and cuffing the man.

The second man wasn't stupid; his own gun dropped from his hand and his arms went up in instantaneous surrender. Gibbs kicked the gun away with his foot, keeping both the second man and Dr. Levenger in his sights. "McGee?"

"Boss…?"

Not particularly healthy but alive, and Gibbs would take what he could get. Gibbs handed over his own set of cuffs to Eppes, who promptly fastened them onto the second man's wrists. They were short one set of cuffs, size woman's medium, but that didn't stop Eppes. His tie, left over from a certain lecture to a crowd of distracted FBI agents, had long since been stuffed into his pocket and now he dragged it out and put it to better use.

There was someone missing, and Eppes went after him. He turned Levenger around to face him. "Where's my brother? Where's Charlie Eppes?"

Levenger glared at him. "Not here, that's for sure."

Gibbs went to McGee, holstering his piece. The man looked like death warmed over, his lips cracked and dry and his eyes sunken. Dried blood stained a hole in his pant leg, and Gibbs didn't need to probe to know what he'd find beneath the ragged cloth. McGee was clutching a laptop as though it was a life-preserver, and he looked back at Gibbs as though he couldn't believe what, or who, he was seeing.

"Boss?"

Gibbs could barely hear the word on McGee's lips. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure that Eppes had the three under control, then slid his hand behind McGee's neck to ease him back down onto the sofa. "It's over, McGee. We've got you."

McGee felt hot to his touch; burning up with fever, Gibbs realized. The man, however, kept a tight grip on the laptop, and somehow Gibbs didn't think it was because his computer geek was in the middle of a rousing game of solitaire. Medical attention needed to be up next on the agenda, and soon.

There was one other thing, and Eppes asked it again, his voice hoarse with fear. "Where's Charlie Eppes?"

Levenger broke in. "He doesn't know. I do." She fixed her gaze on the senior FBI agent. "Cut me a deal, and do it now if you ever want to see him alive."

"You know where he is?" Don rose, wanting to believe.

"I do."

"She doesn't." The words were weak but clear. McGee went on. "He escaped an hour ago. I helped him." He licked his lips, trying to catch his breath.

"We found him," Levenger said, daring McGee to disagree. "He's in another location, one that you'll never find unless I tell you," she added, lifting her chin. "Cut me a deal. I walk out of here right now, or you'll never see Professor Eppes alive."

"McGee?" Gibbs could tell that his man was fading fast. They'd need to move fast if they wanted anything more out of McGee. _We need to move now to keep him alive._

"She's lying." McGee struggled to keep his eyes open, trying to transmit the information through sheer telepathy if nothing else. "Her people came back without him, angry." He indicated the laptop, fingers finally relaxing on its hard frame. "The code…in…here…" His words trailed off, along with consciousness.

"McGee!" Gibbs couldn't help but go for the pulse. There it was, at the jugular, weak but still present.

DiNozzo appeared at the door, Sinclair in his wake. "Bos—"

"Get the medics, DiNozzo. Now."

"On it." DiNozzo pulled out his cell, swearing as the signal strength cut out on him. He moved away, searching for a better spot.

"You. Special Agent Eppes." Dr. Levenger zeroed in on what she hoped would be the weakest link. "Professor Eppes is your brother, right?" She didn't wait for an answer. "That NCIS agent doesn't know what happened. He wasn't there. Yes, your brother tried to escape, and he almost made it. Almost," she repeated. "We caught him, right as he was about to dive into a creek not too far from here."

"Yeah?" Eppes couldn't help himself; that, Gibbs could tell without half-trying. Eppes _wanted_ to believe the suspect. Eppes moved in on her. "So where is he?"

"I want a car," Levenger said with an awesome calm radiating from her. "I want an hour's head start."

 _Crap._ Eppes was caving. Gibbs started to get up—

But—"I've got a better idea," Eppes said, ice like jagged daggers in his words. He turned on one of the men, the one who had surrendered his weapon. "You. We've got you on charges of treason, and you'd better believe that the death penalty is right around the corner. You talk; you live. It's that simple. You talking?"

***

The water was flowing at approximately one point three meters per second, all of which frustrated Charlie because that wasn't the appropriate unit of measure. Under the circumstances, it was the best that he could do. A slender twig dropped from a tree somewhere upstream had obligingly provided a rough estimate of how quickly something traveled in the water, flowing past him, which was how Charlie had come up with the approximate velocity. A better unit of measure would include the volume of water but estimating that number was beyond his current capability.

'Current' capability. Hah. Water currents: a pun. A pretty poor one, but since there was no one around to critique him, he would accept it. After all, he was a mathematician, not a comedian.

Clearly his fingers had frozen to the root extended out into the water, because they didn't show any signs of letting go. A large heron on the bank across the way eyed him balefully, mentally accusing him of driving away the fish that the heron was after. Was that a water moccasin sliding along top of the liquid surface? Another thing that Charlie's computer brain couldn't remember: the fauna in this part of the country. For all he knew, it could be an anaconda. Not that it really mattered; the snake had even less interest in examining the intruder in its abode than the heron.

Oh, yeah. The pun. He was supposed to laugh.

Maybe tomorrow. Right now, he was too tired. He laid his head down on top of the root that he'd grabbed onto, unable to keep himself higher than the water line, grateful that the icy cold water only occasionally slipped up over his face. He was _so_ cold. Going to sleep seemed like a much…better…idea…

***

Gibbs went after Eppes. He'd seen that look too many times, the face of a man who was afraid that his best wasn't going to be good enough. It wasn't that Gibbs didn't trust Eppes…hell, yes, it was. Eppes was a damn good agent with too much on his plate. Under normal circumstances, the man should be sitting out this case.

McGee was in good hands, and there wasn't anything that Gibbs could do for him. The medics were on the way, and DiNozzo in charge of making certain that the laptop stayed in official custody. In the meantime, Gibbs had a job to do. Two jobs, actually: find the FBI consultant, and keep the FBI consultant's FBI agent brother from killing himself while finding the aforementioned consultant. Maybe three: there was that damn cipher to find so that _some_ one _some_ where could unravel the damn thing and tell the world what was so all-fired important that it had already gotten nearly a half dozen people killed.

Quick decisions, and then delegation. "DiNozzo!"

"Boss?"

"Put these bozos on ice. Nobody gets to them except us, and that includes Fornell. Hear me? I don't want to get back to headquarters to find that the FBI thinks that it owns the world."

DiNozzo tossed an uneasy glance over his shoulder. "What about these guys, boss?"

"Visiting dignitaries, DiNozzo." Gibbs eyed Eppes, already half-way up the stairs and heading toward the outdoors—and his brother. "They don't count. As long as they don't try to take the suspects anywhere except NCIS headquarters. Use 'em as guards, DiNozzo. I'm leaving you with a hell of a lot of suspects to keep control of, and I want McGee kept in one piece. Hear me, DiNozzo?"

"One piece. Yes, boss." DiNozzo backed off before the head-whacking could begin.

Best he could do. Gibbs hustled after Eppes, using long legs to catch up to the smaller man.

It only took a moment for Eppes to gaze in all directions and decide which one to take. Gibbs could follow the man's thoughts: which way would the agent's brother go, if he was trying to escape? Gibbs himself couldn't see much to choose from between north and south let alone east or west, but something called to Special Agent Eppes and Gibbs wasn't about to argue. Eppes had one overriding advantage: he knew his brother. Eppes had the best chance of figuring out which way the mathematician had bolted when the bullets started flying.

It was toward the trees, and Gibbs approved. A little cover never hurt, and a moment later he spotted a fresh divot in one of those trees. He mentally marked the spot, intending to assign an agent to come back later and dig it out. He'd give it over to Fornell, he decided. Give the man something to do and to remember Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Eppes knew his stuff. He didn't know this territory—a bit of research earlier had let Gibbs know that Eppes had learned his tracking skills in the Badlands of New Mexico—but he was moving along at a good clip, noting all the signs that Gibbs himself was picking up. He saw the bruised leaf on the mulberry, the faint outline of a smallish man's shoe in the drying mud. Gibbs himself concentrated on listening to the sounds of the forest, hoping to hear something that would lead them more swiftly to the lost mathematician. Twittering of birds annoyed at the intruder in their bower would be nice. A cry for help would be even nicer.

No such luck. All Gibbs could hear was a blue jay shrieking in the distance at a marauding crow and the incessant babbling of an oversized brook somewhere in the vicinity.

Eppes hesitated; the tracks were further apart. Gibbs saw his counterpart frown and bend over to examine the footprints in the mud.

Now the tracks were closer together; Professor Eppes had slowed down. Why? The gunmen were still after him. The bullet holes in the trees to either side proved that. Gibbs looked through the leafy bushes for any sign of blood, relieved not to find any. Bent twigs led the pair toward the sound of water. Eppes nodded. "This way. Charlie would head toward the river. Levenger's story was at least partly correct."

River. Hah. More like a brook with delusions of grandeur. Didn't matter; Eppes's brother knew to move in the direction of the water, and likely he'd try to go downstream. That would make it easier to track the man.

Eppes picked up speed, the trail more obvious.

"He's running full out," Gibbs observed grimly, stretching his own legs. "He's not worried about covering his trail."

"Yeah." Short. Flat. Scared.

Gibbs could have mentioned that it hadn't been long, that it had been just over an hour if McGee's timeline was correct. There was the fact that Eppes's brother was in good physical condition, that his records—the FBI ones, not the public record of the man's academic accomplishments—indicated that Charles Eppes routinely worked out, jogging along the back trails that surrounded CalSci. Gibbs had never heard of Charles Eppes before this little slice of life, but circumstances had changed that in a flash. He figured that there was a fifty-fifty chance of the man being alive; well, maybe sixty-forty, and Gibbs wasn't about to say which was sixty and which was forty. Time would tell.

The stream came up fast, a broad and deep surge of swiftly flowing water that rimmed the edge of the definition of a river. Something caught Gibbs's eye, and he knelt.

"Over here," Eppes called urgently, five yards away. "This footprint looks like Charlie's. I think he dove into the water." He looked up. "Water would alter the line of sight for bullets. Charlie would know that, and the fact that this water would help get him away faster. It's moving quick."

"Eppes." Gibbs didn't want to point out what he himself had found, but he had to.

Eppes looked up the river, just to make sure. "There's nothing flowing down from upstream. I'm sure Charlie went with the flow. It would make sense."

"Eppes," Gibbs called again.

"I'm thinking that one of us should take the other side, just in case he left the water—"

"Eppes!" Gibbs broke in. He indicated a spot on the ground. "Blood. He was hit."

Eppes paled, to the point where Gibbs was worried that the man might pass out. Eppes put a hand to a tree trunk to steady himself. "Charlie." He looked back up, getting hold of himself. "We've got to move."

Gibbs nodded. "There's not a lot of blood. It could be nothing more than a scratch."

"That's likely." Eppes jumped onto the thought. "If it were anything more than a scratch, we'd find his body right here."

 _Not if he fell into the water._ Gibbs carefully didn't share that concept. Instead: "let's move. We need to get the answer to that damn cipher."

* * *

Even half a centimeter more would make a difference, Charlie told himself. A single small tug would lift him that much more out of the cold water that was sapping his strength.

He wasn't moving downstream any longer. The swiftly flowing water had thrust him into this small nook where the water lazily swirled around in a vague imitation of a whirlpool, depositing dead leaves and twigs and other detritus along the riverbank. That meant that sometime in the recent past, Charlie had let go of his root along the way and floated into this small niche.

 _I'm detritus,_ Charlie realized dimly. _I'm nothing more than fodder to decay and replenish the soil. How many worms will it take to reduce me to my constituent molecules so that the grove of ferns over there can turn green from my nutrients?_

He was a dead man. Even getting out of the water wouldn't change that.

Penfield was winning.

***

 _McGeek, you're so white, you look like a stalactite in Carlsbad Caverns._

McGoogle, you're so foolish that you got yourself kidnapped instead of the rightful kidnap victim. Didn't anybody tell you that you're supposed to be the tracker, not the trackee?

McRidiculous, you're lying there like you're about to stop breathing. You're an easy target for a hundred of my best lines, and I can't use any of 'em.

Don't die on me, McGee. Gibbs'll have my head. Ziva will break me into little pieces that Ducky will autopsy into liver pate, and Abby? Like the girl said; she's one of the few people in the world with the expertise to untraceably murder someone.

"How long does it take for the medics to get out here?" Sinclair put into words what DiNozzo was thinking. "This isn't the Santa Ana freeway, the world's fastest parking lot." There was no humor in his voice, just worry.

"Good question," DiNozzo grumbled, longing to be outside, tracking down the other half of the deciphering duo. He was a man of action, DiNozzo told himself. This 'waiting by the bedside' wasn't for him. He stared at McGee, wondering if the man was still breathing, if he'd slipped away when DiNozzo had taken his eyes off of him.

Shit, was he really not breathing—no, there was another breath. Shallow, but air passed in and out.

Sinclair too was looking around the room, taking in the evidence. "This looks as though they'd intended to set up shop here for a long time," he pointed out. "Kitchenette over there. Couple of beds."

"Goes along with what the word on the street was," DiNozzo agreed. "'Cipers R Us' with a couple of mathematicians as senior employees. Makes you wonder how they thought they'd get away with it."

Sinclair shrugged irritably. "They probably would have, if they hadn't screwed up by taking your agent instead of Marshall Penfield."

"Yeah." DiNozzo glared at the laptop. Gibbs had left it there after rescuing it from McGee's fingers.

That laptop was potentially the most valuable thing in the room, he reflected. If what McGee said was accurate, and there was no reason to think otherwise, then the misplaced code had been transferred onto that thing and Professor Eppes had been working to decipher it.

What was on the damn code? There were plenty of upper level spooks worried about it. DiNozzo himself had only gotten the barest details, something about something the size of a bread box getting shipped into the country with the potential to cause untold misery and death. DiNozzo had heard it all before—but not with this level of hysteria. Those upper level spooks seemed to think that this one was accurate, and that the untold misery was a bit bigger than anyone wanted to think about.

Even McGee didn't know, or so they thought. The man had passed out just as Gibbs and Special Agent Eppes had gotten to him, hadn't had much of a chance to say anything. On the other hand, much as DiNozzo wouldn't admit it to McGee's face, McGee was no dummy when it came to computers. _Especially_ when it came to computers.

There was another component to the whole thing: the flash drive. Dr. Levenger had to have had access to the missing cipher in order to hand it over to the two geeks, and Dr. Levenger was right now sitting on one of the chairs in the kitchenette, waiting for back up to arrive and replace Eppes's tie binding her wrists with something a little stronger.

That meant that there was a suspect to be questioned. No time like the present: "Where's the flashdrive?" DiNozzo asked.

"What's in it for me?"

"Amazing," Sinclair commented from the other side of the room. "There she sits, looking at charges for assaulting a Federal agent, kidnapping, and treason, and she thinks that she can cut a deal."

"Of course, I can cut a deal," Dr. Levenger informed him. "The only question is: do I cut it with you, or do I wait for a better offer to come along?" She leaned back in her chairs, tied wrists in front of her on the kitchen table. DiNozzo got the impression that she would have put her feet up on the table in a position of utter ease if her skirt would have allowed it.

Sinclair snorted. "Lady, this _is_ the better offer. Where's the drive?"

Sniff. "Try again, officer."

"Not a big deal," DiNozzo informed her. "After all, we've got the more important part." He indicated the laptop. "The information is on that thing, and in a few minutes it will be in the hands of some of the foremost computer experts in the world. You had Professor Eppes working on the code. We'll have people picking up where he left off. You're toast, lady."

The sounds of a whirring helicopter beat the air. Sinclair looked up, frowning. "Where are they going to land that thing? There are trees all around."

DiNozzo shrugged. "This is D.C. Not the brightest dudes." DiNozzo listened some more. "Damn. I think they've got three birds up there."

"That's how important this code is," Dr. Levenger informed them archly. "I'm still open to offers, gentlemen. You want to be a hero? I can make it happen, if you cooperate."

Sinclair's cell buzzed, and he answered it. "Colby? Yeah, the cavalry's arrived. What? I don't know." He looked over to DiNozzo. "Which outfit are they from, and should we hand over the suspects?"

"We'll find out," DiNozzo replied. "Go upstairs and greet—"

Doors banged upstairs at the entranceway, and they could hear the yells and heavy feet of well-armored personnel knocking down the doors and looking for suspects to arrest and/or shoot.

Sinclair sighed, and looked back at DiNozzo. "Too late."

"Yeah. Hope they brought the paramedics." DiNozzo couldn't help himself; he reached for the pulse in McGee's neck, wincing at how hot the man's skin was. DiNozzo had known branding irons that were cooler.

That roused McGee. "Boss?"

DiNozzo winced. "Boss is out looking for your fellow captive, McGee," he told him. Damn; did his voice lack the usual 'needle McGee' note? _DiNozzo, you're getting soft._ "Help has arrived," he told him. "Just hang in there, McGee. Don't quit breathing, okay?" _Definitely_ getting soft.

McGee made his eyes focus with difficulty. "You gotta find him, Tony. Professor Eppes cracked the code." He coughed, wincing in pain.

DiNozzo caught him, grabbed a glass with water in it and helped McGee to sip. The water eased the cough, and DiNozzo gently lowered the agent back down on the sofa. "We'll find him, McGee," he promised. "Don't worry. Gibbs will find him."

"Gibbs will find him," McGee agreed, his eyes closing despite his best efforts.

DiNozzo couldn't help reaching for the pulse one more time, still hot but throbbing in a welcome rhythm. "Where the hell are they—"

"Federal agents!" someone bawled from outside of the room. "Open up! Come out with your hands up!"

"We've got the situation under control," Sinclair snarled back at them from his place covering Dr. Levenger and her two gunmen. "Get the paramedics in here! We've got a man down!"

"Who's in there? What agency?"

"NCIS!" DiNozzo bawled back. "Who are you from?"

"What the hell agency is that?"

"FBI," Sinclair broke in, with an unreadable glance toward his counterpart. "I need paramedics in here, and I need four of you upstairs backing up my people with more suspects."

The squad leader banged the door to the basement suite open and poked his gun in before allowing his nose to follow. "NSA," he identified himself brusquely, eyeballing the gold shields that both DiNozzo and Sinclair held up as protection from flying bullets. "Your people will be along shortly. Your pilot's still looking for a place to squat."

"We need paramedics—" DiNozzo started to insist.

The squad leader broke in. "No can do. Sorry, guy. Our part is the code. Your people will be along shortly, and you can work with them. You seen the flash drive?"

"But—"

"National security, guy." The squad leader was equal parts sorry and firm. He had his orders. "We don't find that drive, we could be looking at a mushroom cloud somewhere close to D.C. You seen it?"

"No," Sinclair said shortly.

"How about your man—"

"He's out cold," DiNozzo told him with a set jaw. "He needs medical attention, and he needs it _now._ " He jerked his thumb at Dr. Levenger. " _She_ knows where it is."

"Yeah?" The squad leader's eyes brightened. "C'mon, lady. You and I are going to have a little talk. Get her out of here, guys," he ordered his men. "Them, too. We can patch up the guy with the hand when we get back to headquarters. Don't touch anything," he instructed DiNozzo and Sinclair. "We'll send a team to search the place."

"The hell you will." A new voice entered the fray, and DiNozzo could have cheered—almost. Fornell appeared at the door, trench coat rumpled around his shoulders. "This is an FBI crime scene."

"NSA," the squad leader insisted. "National security."

"Yeah. National security, and the FBI is on top of it. Get the hell off of my crime scene."

"This is an NSA code, which gives us jurisdiction—"

"FBI kidnapping, with an FBI consultant as the victim. Leave, if you're not going to follow instructions."

DiNozzo spotted the laptop lying forlornly on the end table near McGee. It wasn't the flash drive, he reasoned. By the look of him, Sinclair had the same thought.

 _Damn_ nice having a partner in crime. DiNozzo idly picked up the case that the laptop fit into.

Sinclair headed for Fornell and the NSA squad leader. "Where's the paramedics?" he demanded, getting into both faces. "We've got a man down! Don't you people listen? I distinctly told you that I needed medical assistance, and I needed it now!"

"This is National Security—"

"Then take the suspect and get out of the way!" Sinclair snarled. DiNozzo slid the laptop into its case, and Sinclair whirled onto the NSA squad leader. "You! NSA! Take her, and the FBI will have a representative at all interrogations. All of 'em; you hear me? Fornell, where's the medics?"

"They're circling—"

"And McGee is the only person who knows where Charlie Eppes is," Sinclair lied, "and Charlie Eppes is the only one who can crack the code." _Maybe_ a lie; the NSA had plenty of code-breakers, all expert in their field—but none of them were Charlie. "Get 'em down here now!" He nabbed Fornell by the sleeve and gave him a little shove. "You find a spot for those medics to land now! Move one of the other choppers back into the air if you have to, but get those medics here now!"

The strap of the laptop case went around DiNozzo's neck. The black case looked for all the world like part of his gear. He set his back against the wall of McGee's prison suite.

Sinclair deliberately walked over to McGee, feeling for a pulse, drawing all eyes to him. "Better hurry," he said.

***

That was Charlie, always getting into trouble from the time he was three and Don was six. Don was always expected to haul Charlie out of trouble, because Charlie was 'special' and required 'special' care. Charlie would lose track of the time, calculating how many grains of sand there were in the sand box, so Don got into trouble for not reminding him to come home to supper. Charlie would get shoved around when he was watching Don play ball, so Don would get into trouble for not protecting him from the older kids. It even turned into Don's responsibility to keep Charlie's classmates from stealing Charlie's homework and lunch money, walking to school.

Homework. Security codes. Was there much difference between the two? Only in terms of scope: one was a little bit of cheating and the other could result in the extermination of a large portion of the population of the Western World. Bottom line, Don was rushing to haul Charlie's fat out of the fire again. The only time he'd ever escaped the responsibility was when Charlie and Mom headed East to Princeton. Then it was Mom's job, and—like everything else she did—she did it perfectly. Charlie aced his way through Princeton, going through his undergraduate years in record time. He'd even enjoyed it.

 _Mom's not here anymore. She's not ever going to be here, and there's a damn good chance that Charlie's going to join her. That I'm not doing a good enough job at protecting Charlie, and the world's going to come to an end because I'm not good enough—_

"Eppes!"

A flash of dirty white, swirling in the water. Don would have missed it if Gibbs hadn't pointed it out.

It was a body. It was a dead body, bobbing in the water, the current trying disinterestedly to dislodge it from the twigs that tethered it in the side pool and send it drifting further downstream.

Swimming was not Don's sport—that was baseball—but Don was a natural athlete. He'd gotten his life guard certification at sixteen and earned his first car by saving the money that he'd earned at the local pool. He'd earned spending money for college by doing the same at the university athletic facilities; they were always in need of life guards and Don had financed a bunch of keg parties that way, even keeping up the practice while he spent time in the minors hoping to make it to major league baseball.

The certification had lapsed, but not the skill. It didn't matter that the victim wasn't moving. It didn't matter that the body was face down, that Don couldn't see any signs of breathing. It was Charlie's shirt, and it was Charlie, and it was Don's responsibility to haul him out of there, just like he'd done when he was sixteen and Charlie was thirteen and too stupid to stay out of the deep end of the pool when he couldn't swim all that well. Don was on duty that day, and when Charlie had gone down, Don was ready. Don had been waiting.

Don hadn't been ready this time. Don wasn't watching when Charlie went into this stream, when someone shot him and his brother had collapsed into the water. Don hadn't been in the dugout, keeping an eye on his dorky little brother when the kidnappers entered the hotel salon and hauled his drugged body out through the window.

The flash of white had a pale smear of pink on it where the bullet had entered Charlie's body. That small fragment of intel impacted Don's mind just as the cold water impacted his body, diving in after his brother.

***

"I'm going with him," DiNozzo informed the others, the dual grouping in a tight huddle. "Ziva, you're with me. Sinclair, you and Granger see if you can keep these clowns under control."

"That's a hopeless task," Sinclair replied. "Better: Colby and I will head out after Don and your boss."

"But that'll give the NSA dudes control of our suspects," Colby protested. "We still need 'em."

"For what?" Sinclair gave voice to what DiNozzo was already thinking. "Except for Levenger, they're low level flunkies. Even Levenger doesn't have anything to give us; she doesn't know what the code said, or where the package is coming onto U.S. soil."

Ziva nodded slowly. "You are right; McGee is more important. He worked with Professor Eppes, and he is more likely to know what Professor Eppes discovered. Or if he ever deciphered the code at all," she added grimly. "If I were McGee, I would lie about that to Dr. Levenger if it would save my life."

"But he wouldn't lie to me," DiNozzo said firmly. He jerked his thumb at the unconscious man on the sofa. "He told me that Eppes cracked it."

"Unless Eppes lied to him," Ziva parried.

Colby shook his head. "Not under these circumstances. I don't think I've ever heard Charlie lie, and I _know_ that he's a terrible poker player. When it comes to bluffing," he clarified. "Counting cards: better than anyone I know. Bluffing? Whole 'nother story, dude."

"McGee's limo ride's here," DiNozzo interrupted, spotting the medics entering with a stretcher between them. "Over here, guys," he directed, refusing to let them be diverted to the man that Don Eppes had shot in the hand.

"The suspect—" the NSA leader started to object.

Sinclair wouldn't let him—and neither would Fornell. "Get McGee out of here," Fornell snarled, grabbing the medic by the arm and shoving him in the direction of the NCIS agent. "This idiot here can wait for the next bus."

McGee woke briefly as the medics jostled him. "Boss?"

"It's okay, McGee," DiNozzo soothed. "Boss is out looking for the professor. You know where he might head?"

"No—ow!" McGee sucked in his breath, all ability to speak lost when one of the medics applied pressure and a bandage to his knee.

"Almost ready," the medic said. "Joe, you steady the stretcher. Guy, you just keep your arms crossed across your chest, okay?"

"Let me give you a hand," DiNozzo offered when nothing of McGee moved of its own volition. DiNozzo gently pulled McGee's arms so that they were crossed over his chest, out of the way, and then slid his own hands underneath his fellow agent. Damn, but McGee still felt hot! A hospital was going to be the best place for the man, and _soon_ if they didn't want him to be gracing Ducky's cold autopsy table.

There was another quick hiss as DiNozzo and the medics lifted the NCIS man off of the sofa, Sinclair and Granger lending a hand to make light work of their burden. The hiss turned into a groan forced out of the man as they eased him onto the metal frame, the medics pulling straps tight over his shivering body. When had the medics slipped in the IV? DiNozzo hadn't seen them do it, and McGee hadn't even flinched. _Just a measure of how far gone McGeek is,_ DiNozzo thought sourly. _Don't die on me, McGoner. Gibbs'll hand me my ass, for sure._ "Let's get moving," he ordered. "Ziva, you're with me."

Sinclair took the next part, he and Granger grabbing McGee's stretcher to help get the injured man up the steps from the basement suite and out to the chopper. "Fornell, the crime scene is yours," he called out formally. The words were spoken to Special Agent Fornell, but aimed at the NSA squad leader. "We need that evidence ASAP. We need to find that flash drive so that we can decode it to find out where the package is entering."

As if decoding the thing was a minor issue that anyone could do. DiNozzo could have cheered. Had he really worked with Sinclair for only a few hours? Truly an agent after his own heart. Distract the NSA crew so that NCIS—and a couple of clever FBI types—could work unimpeded on the real deal. The laptop in its black case felt heavy across his back, and it banged against the door frame as DiNozzo slid out with McGee's stretcher.

The chopper was waiting, the pilot still wearing his goggles and helmet. The rotors were twirling lazily, creating a gentle breeze to carry fresh air past DiNozzo's face. The four agents helped the medics to stow the stretcher inside, hooking it down to the D-rings installed for just such a maneuver.

The lead medic wasted no time, waving DiNozzo and Ziva to their seats. "Let's get this bird in the air, Buck," he called out. "Radio ahead for the docs. I want orders to start running in some antibiotics before we arrive. This guy is cooking."

Sinclair grabbed DiNozzo's arm. "Take good care of him, DiNozzo. If we can't find Charlie…" he let his voice trail off.

DiNozzo could hear the fear, loud and clear. "You'll find him," he told the FBI agent. "There's nobody better than Gibbs at tracking someone down, and I get the feeling that your boss is no slouch, either."

"Yeah." Sinclair tried to look cheerful.

DiNozzo cut off the long goodbyes. He rapped on the side of the chopper. "Let's lift!"

The last thing he saw was the two FBI agents heading off into the woods on the far side of the compound, heading after their boss and Gibbs.

* * *

A second form cut through the water, and powerful arms propelled the man forward. _Gibbs,_ Don realized. As good as Don was, Gibbs was better, and Don redoubled his efforts to keep up.

That was Charlie in front of them, and a body that wasn't moving. How long had it been? There was no way of knowing, no way short of an autopsy and Don Eppes wasn't about to let that happen. Not now. Charlie was too young to die. Charlie was too _smart_ to die. The old 'genius dying young' scenario went out of favor generations ago. Geniuses were now supposed to live into their eighties, dispensing wisdom along the way.

If he wasn't in the water with his mouth closed, Don would have been babbling. He recognized the symptoms, and something small inside of him said that he really ought to remove himself from this case, that he was too close to one of the major players.

Don told the little voice to shut up and wait for a more opportune time. He had a brother to rescue.

Gibbs reached Charlie first, and Don a mere instant later. The first touch terrified him: Charlie was cold. Cold, as in dead. Cold, as in life had been extinguished an hour ago, as though the faint smear of pink told of a bullet piercing some vital organ and death had been all but instantaneous.

That didn't matter to Gibbs. The NCIS man hauled the cold body around to get to the mouth, forcing air in and pausing only to let river water spew out. "Help me get him to the shore."

"He's not…?" Don couldn't finish the question.

"Not yet." Gibbs forced more air into Charlie's mouth. "Shore. Move!"

Don grabbed Charlie's arm—it still felt too cold for any life to be left—and pushed off toward the shore. A small eddy of current tried to pull all three of them back into the main stream, but Don fought it off, forcing the grouping closer to the embankment.

"Don! Over here!"

It was Sinclair, and Granger, and it was four more strong arms. The pair of FBI agents waded in, grabbing all three and dragging them onto land.

Granger took over from Gibbs, blowing air into Charlie's lungs, mud crawling up around the both of them.

"Is he…?"

Charlie coughed. It was the most wonderful sound that Don had ever heard.

Gibbs took over, refusing to slow down. "He's been shot," he told the other two. "The cold of the river probably kept him from bleeding out. He warms up, the bleeding's going to pick up." He glanced across the terrain. "We're a good two miles from the house. A long way."

Don got hold of himself. He forced his concern for his brother into the background, turned himself back into the calculating team leader of the premier squad of the Los Angeles force. "There's a vehicle back at the mansion, and the road is less than half a mile from this location." He rapidly assessed the men available. "Colby, go back and commandeer a vehicle. I don't care if it's evidence or if you have to hotwire it; if it runs, get it over here. Tell Fornell I need another chopper with a set of medics to meet us. And, Colby?"

"Don?"

"Tell Fornell that the man who can solve the code is who the chopper is for."

Gibbs slid his hands under Charlie's shoulders, ready to lift and help carry the unconscious man out of the forest. He chuckled grimly. "That'll get Fornell moving."

***

"Special Agent Eppes," Dr. Mallard growled, "you appear to be cut from the same cloth as Special Agent Gibbs. You appear to labor under the misapprehension that browbeating a hapless medical examiner as to the condition of a living victim in a hospital will result in an improved outcome. I assure you, dear fellow, that it will not. No amount of harassment will enable me to predict the outcome of surgery on your brother any sooner or with any greater accuracy than I already have." He re-seated himself on the hard plastic chair that was the only source of comfort in the surgical waiting area.

Don started to apologize. "Dr. Mallard—"

"Ducky," Gibbs cut in, a warning and long-suffering tone in his voice.

"Jethro, I am merely pointing out—"

"Ducky, the man's blowing off steam. Let 'im."

Don felt obliged to cut in, an oblique apology for his own behavior. "Gibbs, how's your man? McGee?"

That changed the tenor of the discussion. Gibbs's face darkened. "They can't get his fever down. Not yet," he added, as if it was only a matter of time and medical competence—and both time and competence could be bullied into cooperation as soon as Gibbs set his mind to it. "The bullet went through his leg, so they just had to clean it out and patch him up."

Don recognized the defense mechanism; Gibbs was as worried about his agent as Don was about Charlie, and Don didn't blame him in the slightest. Don would have been just as scared if David or Colby or Megan had been in the same position.

This was different. Charlie wasn't just one member of Don's team, he was his _brother._ This was the man that Don had grown up despising and teasing and loving. It was the man that he'd grown away from and then learned to love as a brother all over again. This wasn't an agent of the Federal government, sworn to put his life on the line for the good of the country; this was a civilian, someone that they'd all sworn to serve and protect. This was a man who would change the world with his intellect—if he didn't die on the operating table.

There wasn't a damn thing that any one of them standing there could do about it.

David changed the subject, perhaps recognizing dangerous territory. "Anyone hear anything from Fornell about the crime scene?"

Gibbs had gotten better intel; from where, Don had no idea. "There was a pretty good fight between Fornell and the NSA," he informed them, trying for amusement and falling short.

"Who won?"

"To hear Fornell tell it, it was a draw," Gibbs said.

Don could translate as well as anyone there. "He lost. NSA took over. They find anything?"

"Nothing, which was why Fornell is calling it a draw. Nobody found the data stick they were looking for. They have a bunch of leads on people who were interested in the contents of the code. Most of those are getting turned over to the CIA; a lot of them are located overseas and out of FBI jurisdiction. The ones on American soil Fornell is keeping. The NSA has graciously allowed that it doesn't have the manpower to keep everyone under surveillance." The sarcasm dripped heavily.

"How about your Forensics?" David asked. "The laptop?"

Gibbs glowered. "Nothing yet."

Colby shook his head. "Man, your people may be good, but this was _Charlie_ working on it. Charlie is one of the premier code guys in the world. You think your forensics people can hack it?"

***

"Tony!" Abby wailed. "Tony, there is no way that I am going to be able to get into this thing. Not even if I unscrew the back and offer it mint chocolate chip ice cream will I be able to pull any data from the hard drive." She glowered at the NCIS agent. "You do realize that when it comes to setting up codes, there's a reason why Professor Eppes is considered the best of the best of the best?"

"Yes, Abbs, I do." DiNozzo knew when to do his own groveling, and his came with a thirty two ounce glass of Caf-Pow. "But _you_ are the best of the best of the best when it comes to Forensics, right? You can beat a little old laptop."

"I can beat it with a stick, Tony," she told him, "but I can't get into the data files. _Maybe_ McGee. Why don't you ask him? Oh, wait," she added, the sarcasm flowing heavily to cover up the fear. "You can't. It's because you let him get kidnapped along with Professor Eppes."

"Not my fault," DiNozzo said promptly. "Did I tell him to make a cyber-date with a cop at some boring lecture? If he'd taken a real girl out on a real date, this never would have happened."

"This is McGee, Tony." Abby wasn't appeased. "You know he's a geek, and you tease him anyway."

"Abbs, McGee expects it." It was time to put this conversation to bed. "And he expects you to get into this thing, Abby. This is McGee; he worked on this machine along with Professor Eppes. What kind of password would McGee use if he didn't want them to find the answer but wanted us to be able to get to it?"

"Good question, Tony. I wish I had a good answer. I tried everything I could think of: your name. My name. Gibbs's name. I tried Ducky, Mallard, every variation on every waterfowl I could think of. Nothing," she said grimly. "Nothing is working. I have the decrypting programs running at full speed, trying to muscle it out, and they haven't come up with anything yet."

"I guess the best thing to do is to give them time to work—"

"I don't think so, Tony." Abby had moved beyond that. "Tony, we're talking something really really scary, here. If you're McGee, what do you do to protect it?"

"I encode it," DiNozzo replied promptly. "If I'm McGee, I know that I'm damn good with a computer and that nobody is likely to get into anything that I set up. Not for a while, at least."

"Right. But who are you paired up with?"

DiNozzo stared at her, the answer sinking in like a lead weight.

"Right. Only the world's most best-est and smartest-est mathematician in the world. Somebody who makes the average type geniuses at the NSA go, 'ooh, ahhh'. Now, who's going to set up a pass code to get into the answer to a cipher that has a very good possibility of destroying the Western Hemisphere?"

The lead weight hit rock bottom.

DiNozzo dragged out his cell. "Gibbs is going to kill me." He tried to hand the electronic marvel to the forensics scientist. "You talk to him, Abby."

***

Gibbs had long ago decided that there were three kinds of surgeons. A small minority were actually human, able to interact with average mortals and with a clear understanding that while they had certain skills, there were other areas of every day living that they had little to no control over and a bit of prayer that the two didn't conflict was a pretty good practice to live by. An equally small minority were arrogant bastards, hyper-intelligent and determined to let the world know it by contriving to control every aspect of life around them by whatever means seemed the most expedient at the time. They usually got away with outrageous behavior because when the chips were down, the arrogant bastards would come through.

The third type of surgeon, the majority that Gibbs had had the misfortune to meet, fell into neither category. Arrogant, sure, with a pair of brass ones to go with the arrogance, but without the outstanding intelligence that caused people to walk away, grumbling under their breath. No, this type of surgeon was the type that got laughed at behind his back while someone else cleaned up his mess and hoped that his patient didn't die.

This one fell into category two. _Better have,_ was Gibbs's unvoiced thought. _This is the guy that they have on call for when the president is in town._ Gibbs recognized the type walking alongside the stretcher carrying Eppes's brother out of surgery, shouting orders as though the people with their hands actually on the stretcher couldn't hear him from two feet away.

Professor Eppes looked surprisingly peaceful and clean, despite the sheer whiteness of his face. From his brother's expression, though, Gibbs gathered that the man didn't look quite as good as Gibbs thought. Didn't phase Gibbs; he'd only seen the mathematician in pictures and then again while blowing air into his lungs. This looked pretty good compared to what Gibbs had dragged out of the river.

There was a hunk of bandages across the man's belly; again, not surprising. They'd probably had to do a fair amount of digging to find the bullet. That hunk of lead was already bagged and tagged and on its way to the FBI's lab; Fornell had intercepted it as one of the few pieces of evidence that he could get his hands on. Gibbs took a moment to feel for Fornell: the FBI senior agent had lost the crime scene to NSA and the code to NCIS. There wasn't much left for Fornell to grab. Besides, Gibbs consoled himself, they'd pulled the bullet out of an _FBI_ consultant, not an NCIS consultant. Let Fornell have it, and figure out which of the guns they'd confiscated at Levenger's hideout was the one that did the deed. The whole bunch of suspects were on the chopping block for treason, and attempted murder wasn't going to make a whole hill of beans on top of that.

There was a mess of wires, too, each competing for space on Eppes and then leading to heavy boxes that went _beep._ Small guy, Gibbs realized again, with maybe not quite enough room for all of the wires. A couple hooked up to the portable EKG thing, not just one but two IVs—they having a sale on them today? Each line boasted a big bag of liquid whatever and another couple little ones for flavoring—and then there was the whole oxygen over the face contraption. Gibbs felt sorry for the man. That plastic over his face had to smell vile, and that was the least of the professor's worries. One wrong move, and a whole host of tubes would be shoved very quickly into places best left not described.

Gibbs felt even sorrier for his FBI counterpart. Don Eppes looked as though he wished that he was lying on the stretcher instead of his brother. Probably did, Gibbs admitted to himself. How often had Gibbs wished for the same thing, going all the way back to 'Nam when any of his boys got shot up? The two other FBI agents, Sinclair and Granger, were echoing the same look. Clearly the mathematician had earned his place on their team. The brother wasn't just hired help. He'd earned his place in the FBI just as much as Abby had hers in NCIS Forensics.

"It will be impossible to tell the outcome for the next twenty four hours," the surgeon intoned. There was a name embroidered on the white lab coat that the man had artfully thrown over his scrubs. Gibbs didn't bother squinting to make the letters come clear; it was unimportant. What was important was that the man lying on the stretcher wake up in time to tell them what the code said so that they could save the world, or at least a substantial hunk of it. The surgeon focused on Agent Eppes as the next of kin while the crowd of scrub-covered underlings shifted their target onto the narrow ICU bed. "The surgery was difficult and technically challenging—"

 _Trying to tell us how wonderful you are._ Gibbs stifled a grunt.

"—and was made more difficult by the extensive submersion in water."

 _That cold water probably saved his life. Slowed his heart down so that he didn't pump all of his blood out through the bullet hole. Gave you a patient instead of a corpse._

"Septic shock and pneumonia are both very real possibilities."

 _You don't need to cover your butt, doc. Everyone here knows how bad off he is. Everyone here has lost good friends to enemy action._

"He should be waking up shortly. We will be keeping a close eye on him," the surgeon repeated before taking his leave, apparently dissatisfied with the level of awe his presence engendered in the crowd of Federal agents.

Sinclair grunted. "Like we expected the nurses to ignore him. They're even keeping track of how often he breathes." He pointed to one of the machines positioned high above Charlie's bed, a bright green dot rising and falling in time with the mathematician's chest.

Gibbs moved onto more important things. "I've got a couple of Marines downstairs, waiting to stand guard. I'll bring 'em up in a moment." He regarded the unconscious man in the bed, considering. "We need that code, Eppes."

"Yeah." Special Agent Eppes took a deep breath, leaning over the bed. The feelings that he radiated were clear: the words were national security, but Eppes wanted proof that his brother was going to be all right. "Charlie, can you hear me?"

If he did, the professor gave no sign.

Eppes tried again. "Charlie, it's Don. Talk to me, buddy."

This time there was a small shifting of muscles, followed by a whimper of pain. Eppes winced but kept on, the others crowding in, hoping to hear something from the injured man.

"Charlie. Charlie, it's Don. Charlie, you're safe. We need to know about the code."

"Don?" It wasn't more than a hiss of pain and the eyes never came close to opening, but each of them could hear the FBI agent's name on his lips.

Don became cautiously excited. "That's right, Charlie. I'm here, and you're safe. We got McGee back, too." He smoothed damp curls off of his brother's forehead, needing touch to tell him that the cold of the river was ebbing out of his brother's body.

Charlie relaxed; they could see it in the very lines of his body. "Thought he was Penfield," he whispered.

"That's right, and we got him out of there. McGee is safe, Charlie." Don squeezed Charlie's hand reassuringly, avoiding the various lines and equipment that dotted his brother's arm, and returned to the thing that they needed most. "What about the code, Charlie?"

Charlie muttered something. Don looked up at the others. They shook their heads, eyebrows furrowed. "Charlie, say it again. I didn't get that."

Charlie coughed, and a fleck of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. He tried to lick dry lips, even that small movement causing pain. He coughed again, another whimper forced out of him.

"He's not awake enough—" David started to say, when one of the machines overhead started to whine. Little beeps increased in both volume and speed, indicating something amiss.

The nurses were in the room in a flash. "Out," one ordered curtly, equipment already in her hands and ready for use. "Jen, open up the lines. Denise, get the Lord High Sturgeon's ass back in here. Out," she repeated to the Federal agents, wanting to be sympathetic but the immediate need for action overriding all other considerations.

"Charlie?" Eppes wasn't about to go, staring at his brother. Gibbs grabbed his arm, pulled him away as the surgeon barreled back in. Orders were shouted, and it looked like mildly organized chaos as the Federal agents tried to get out of the way.

Sinclair helped tug Eppes back out of the room. "Don, let them do their job. Charlie will be all right," he insisted. "We just have to give him time."

"I pushed him too much," Don whispered, staring through the glass at the crowd of medical personnel working on his brother. "I shouldn't have asked him anything. I should have let him rest."

"You had no choice, Eppes," Gibbs reminded him. "This isn't just your brother's life at stake. We need that code."

"Yes, but—"

"No choice." Gibbs wouldn't let his counterpart shoulder any blame. "This is national security, Eppes. If you hadn't asked, I would have had to. Anybody get what he said?" he asked, turning to the two other FBI agents, deliberately changing the topic.

Sinclair frowned. "No."

Granger merely looked puzzled. "Almost sounded like he said 'ass'."

"Maybe 'class'?" Sinclair suggested.

"Bass? Gas?" Gibbs ran through the alphabet. "Lass?"

"What would it mean?" Don cut to the chase.

Gibbs thought for several long moments, then shrugged. "Beats me."

* * *

McGee didn't look any better than Charlie did, was Sinclair's first thought. Maybe a little less pale, but Sinclair had the sneaking suspicion that it was merely because McGee's hair was lighter and provided less of a contrast to point up the lack of circulating blood inside. What McGee gained in color, he lost to the remnants of a black eye. He'd gotten roughed up, Sinclair remembered Gibbs saying, early on when the kidnappers thought that he was Professor Penfield. Couple of broken ribs, couple of bruises hidden underneath the hospital gown. Gibbs's lips had tightened when he'd said that, and Sinclair remembered thinking that Dr. Levenger and her people were lucky to be in NSA hands. There would have been a few more bruises floating around if NCIS had won the tug of war.

Don was here, but only because Gibbs had all but dragged him away from his brother. It had been touch and go for over an hour, Don biting his already bitten nails to the quick, but the mathematician was still alive. They'd left Colby behind with a couple of burly Marines to guard the door from all lower forms of life including microbes and kidnappers, with the nurses' assurance that _this_ time Charlie would continue to breathe for the next few hours. After the last episode, David Sinclair was more likely to trust them than the surgeon. They'd stabilized him for the moment, and that was the best that any of them could hope for.

There was still national security, and the very real possibility that they could all go up in a mushroom cloud if they didn't get the code. Since Charlie wasn't able to help, they turned to the next best thing: Special Agent Timothy McGee.

The Mossad officer, Ziva David, had stayed with him, and Sinclair surmised that she held a similar spot on the team that Colby did: nothing was going to get through her to the injured man lying on the hospital bed. Sinclair had had some experience with Mossad during his time in the Middle East, and he had a healthy respect for their training and skill. They weren't perfect, but getting in one's way was a quick path to a short and inglorious end to life.

McGee hadn't stirred when Sinclair and Don and Gibbs had entered, and none of the three had disturbed him until DiNozzo and the forensics woman—Abby was her name—came in bearing the laptop that they'd surreptitiously recovered from the crime scene.

"Any trouble?" Gibbs wanted to know.

DiNozzo shook his head. "Nothing, boss, although my cell phone buzzed a few times. I let it go to voice mail; it would be illegal to talk on the cell while driving, and I wouldn't want to show a bad example to the public at large."

"Agent Fornell was walking in as we were leaving," Abby explained. "I think he was looking for you, Gibbs."

"He was waving," DiNozzo confirmed. "He must like you very much, boss."

"Little thick, DiNozzo," Gibbs grunted. "Fornell knows where I am, and he'll be here soon. Where's the damn laptop?"

"Right here." DiNozzo produced the ubiquitous black canvas bag, dropping it onto the bedside table and pulling the electronic marvel from within. Not satisfied with that, Abby tapped the power button to turn the thing on.

Voices hadn't disturbed the injured man in the bed. Not even DiNozzo's inadvertent jostling at the foot had cause him to stir, but the familiar tune of the awakening computer perked McGee right up. He opened his eyes, winced, closed his eyes, and finally opened them one last time to stare blearily at his visitors. "Boss?"

"McGee." In deference to the man's condition, Gibbs kept his voice soft. "How are you feeling?"

Another wince that McGee tried and failed to cover up. "Not too bad, boss," he lied. Panic struck, and he looked around. "Professor Eppes! They went after him—"

"He's safe, McGee," Ziva told him. "He's recuperating in the room upstairs." _No need to tell you that the next floor up belongs to the Intensive Care Unit._

"Good." McGee settled back onto the white linens, strength spent by merely that small activity. He stared at the laptop that Abby and DiNozzo had brought in, hungrily devouring the sight of the electronic tool.

"It's the one you were working on," Don confirmed for him, watching the NCIS agent for any sign of acknowledgment. "You and Charlie."

"Charlie." McGee was momentarily confused. "Oh. You mean Professor Eppes."

"Right." Don had always had difficulty calling his brother 'professor'. 'Tagalong' and 'twerp' always seemed to come to mind so much more easily, David recalled Don telling him once. 'Major annoyance' also figured in there.

Don kept going. "Charlie—Professor Eppes, I mean—and you worked on the code, right on this computer. This is the one we took from the room where they were keeping you."

McGee stared at the thing. Sinclair felt ice grow in the pit of his stomach. The code, he was certain, was going to stay locked inside the laptop, until Charlie woke up enough and in good enough health to be able to tell them the password. They could only hope that it would be in time.

Gibbs wasn't giving up. He pulled the chipped wooden hospital chair over to the side of the bed, sitting down beside McGee. "McGee," he said. "McGee," he repeated, carefully pulling the man's befuddled attention to him. "McGee, the laptop. You used it, right? Back at the mansion, when they thought that you were Professor Penfield."

"Penfield," McGee agreed, struggling to keep his eyelids open.

"You helped Professor Eppes crack the code," Gibbs prodded. "Right?"

"Right." The words were definitely slurred. Sinclair could barely hear them. McGee tried to wake himself with an effort. "Right," he repeated, this time with more energy.

"You put a password onto the laptop, so that they couldn't get in. That was your safety net. Your protection."

"Right." But this answer held more doubt.

"Did you, McGee?" Under normal circumstances, it would have been a growl, followed by a whack to the back of the head. Not this time.

"Password." No question about it; McGee wasn't remembering it.

Don slid into the process. "Maybe Charlie—Professor Eppes—set up the password?"

That seemed to sit better. "Yeah. I think so." McGee thought for a long moment, so long that at first Sinclair thought that he'd drifted off again. "Yeah. Professor Eppes set up the password. I told him to. Told him to escape, that I'd cover him. More important for him to get away."

Sinclair saw Don's fists clench. The FBI team leader had known that he owed his brother's life to this agent's bravery, but this confirmed it beyond any possible doubt. Sinclair wondered if the FBI could bestow any medals onto an NCIS agent? If it could be done, Don would make it happen.

Gibbs went back to the issue at hand, the one that would keep the world from immolation. "What was the password, McGee? Did he give it to you?"

"No." McGee's face fell, then turned to puzzlement. "Said that I could figure it out, if I thought about it."

"Then he must have given you a clue," Gibbs prodded. "The password meant something to you."

"If Dr. Levenger and her gang thought that McGee was the key to the password and the code, they'd be more likely to keep him alive," Colby muttered in an aside to Sinclair.

"It was a number that meant something to you," Gibbs guessed. "What number did you give him? Your social security number? Driver's license? Badge number?"

"Maybe a word," Ziva suggested from behind Gibbs.

"A name," Abby chimed in. "That would mean something to you, McGee, like he said. Try 'McGee'," she offered, swiveling the laptop around to tap in the potential password.

 _Beep._ Snidely. Sinclair found it amazing that a single beep could encompass so much emotion.

"That's not it," Ziva murmured. "Timothy?"

Another failure.

"Maybe Gibbs?" Abby guessed. "DiNozzo?"

DiNozzo shook his head. "Professor Eppes didn't know any of us; probably didn't have the opportunity to ask about our names. How about 'Levenger'?"

That too didn't get them into the files.

Then it hit Don like a tsunami. "It was a name that meant something to _both_ Charlie and McGee. Who would that have been? Who did they both know?" At the blank looks, he hurried on. "Penfield!"

"That's it." McGee didn't have enough strength to warrant an exclamation point, but he tried. "It was Professor Penfield. He didn't tell me, but he knew that I'd guess that. And that Ms. Marple wouldn't think of him."

"Ms. Marple?" DiNozzo looked confused.

"That must have been Dr. Levenger's name for herself," Ziva decided, and, at DiNozzo's look of disbelief, added, "Agatha Christie's novels have been translated into many languages, Tony. You should try reading one. English will do. That was the language they were originally written in."

"Let's try it." Don grabbed the laptop and tapped in the name before the two NCIS agents could spar any further.

 _Beep._

"All capitals?"

 _Beep._

"With a number? The number one?"

 _Beep._

"The number two," Don said, desperation uppermost. "Charlie always thought that Penfield was second best."

 _Beep._

"Dammit." Don refused to raise his voice, but it was a close thing. "I was so sure!"

"It was Penfield." McGee too was puzzled. "It…was…Professor…Pen…"

The second tsunami hit, only this time it aimed for the other team leader in the room. Gibbs turned from McGee to Don Eppes. "Eppes, your brother; what was his relationship with Professor Penfield?"

"Marshall Penfield? Dislike is one way to put it. 'Despise' would also qualify." Don couldn't see where Gibbs was going, but hope was there.

"No love lost?"

"None whatsoever." Don was willing to play along.

Gibbs went straight for the throat. "Upstairs, with your brother, he said one word. 'Class', maybe?"

"Could be. Penfield class."

 _Beep._

"But he didn't like Penfield. Not 'class'. He said—"

"Ass!" Don jumped back at the laptop.

"That's it!" McGee opened his eyes. He had little time and he knew it, so he used it to say the one phrase that the room needed to hear.

"Penfield underscore ass."

* * *

There wasn't time to call in additional troops. Both the FBI and NCIS headquarters were notified, but even rapid deployment wasn't going to get a team to the dock in time.

The laptop had yielded the code, and it wasn't good. It contained an address—a dock address, to be clear, with the name of the warehouse where whatever it was had been delivered. There was also a time that had passed by several hours; Gibbs surmised that it might have been the delivery time.

There were now two teams, one FBI and one NCIS, streaking toward the site, a total of six Federal agents on a joint case, hoping against hope that the targeted container hadn't already been seized by whoever was determined to destroy the country.

It was a possibility. The delivery time had been designated as approximately ten that morning, according to the code that Charlie had deciphered. It was now just after five in the afternoon; whatever terrorist cell was eagerly awaiting might already have picked it up and was now planning an overload of terror and destruction.

"Not likely," had been Don's take on it. "They won't want to draw attention to themselves. That means that they'll either arrange delivery to a drop house, or they'll sneak in after dark to get it. How secure is the dock?"

"They try," Gibbs told him grimly. "Like the rest of us, they're understaffed—"

"—and underpaid," DiNozzo put in.

"—and don't have a lot to work with," Gibbs finished up, glaring at DiNozzo.

"Bottom line, it's pretty much open to anyone with two cents' worth of smarts." Colby summed it up, grabbing the door handle to the car. "Let's boogie."

Which was how the team of six found themselves on the dock, moving toward the warehouse that the code had identified.

Don let Gibbs take the lead; the NCIS agents had covered this ground before and knew the lay of the land. Once again, an FBI agent paired up with an NCIS agent, the better to protect each other's back and still have the advantage that familiarity with the dock conferred.

"It's early," Colby observed. "Maybe we can get the package, then set up a trap for whoever comes to get it." It was more of a prayer, not even worthy of being called a hope quite yet.

Gibbs grunted. "Let's get the package first, shall we?"

In broad daylight, a hidden approach wasn't possible. The agents got through the meager dock security without a hitch, impressing the guards with FBI and NCIS badges and locating the warehouse where the package was stored. Sinclair tossed a glance at DiNozzo: _at least these guys know your agency._

There wasn't much time. The six broke into a run, noting the even numbered warehouses on one side and the odd on the other. The layout was reasonably sensible, and they located it quickly.

"Hold up." Don had spotted something suspicious. "There's a truck there."

Not just any truck. The usual type of truck that arrived at the dock to do business was large and ungainly, designed for the loading and unloading of large quantities stored in equally large boxes. Not this time: parked in front of their destination was a small black pick up, better suited to sitting in front of someone's porch ready to haul Granny's chest of drawers to her shiny new retirement home down the street. It was a truck that wouldn't arouse suspicion on the average street corner—but here it stood out like a sore thumb.

Everyone recognized the significance, and slowed. Don pursed his lips, checking his natural inclination to take charge. This was NCIS home turf. "Gibbs?"

Gibbs nodded, appreciating the gesture. "DiNozzo, Sinclair," he hesitated slightly over the unfamiliar name, "cover the back. Don't let anyone out. We'll give you a ten count to get yourselves in position, then we're going in."

"On it." DiNozzo led at a run, just barely staying ahead of Sinclair.

"Ziva, Eppes, Granger; let's take it slow," Gibbs decided. "They're not going anywhere. Not yet."

"Let's make certain of that." Don slipped over to the pick up and, easing the hood open silently, detached a couple of essential wires. Nothing that would take very long to repair, but the owners of the truck wouldn't be going anywhere until someone took a look and figured out what had happened. Nuisance value only, but that might mean the difference between apprehension and escape.

Gibbs nodded approvingly and moved to silent mode, hand gestures only. The ten count was finished well before Don had completed his own preparations, and the four Federal agents moved forward to the main entrance to the warehouse.

It was far from the largest warehouse Don had ever seen. The docks of Los Angeles had much larger, and even New Mexico, where he'd done Fugitive Recovery, had the sprawling land to allow people to spread out. This, however, was D.C., and compared to the West Coast, space was limited. This area had its share of huge warehouses, but this was not one of them. This was a space designed for importers on a budget. Considering the financial pressures being placed on terrorist organizations today, Don wasn't surprised at the small size. More important, though, was the opportunity to be overlooked. For a package like this, being hidden in plain sight made all the difference.

The code hadn't mentioned how large the package would be, only that it would be deadly. _Yeah, genetically altered smallpox has a damn good chance of killing a few million people before it escapes US borders and goes on to destroy the world,_ Don thought. _Proof positive that terrorists are crazy: the terrorists themselves had just as good a chance of dying as everyone else._ The package, he decided, was just as likely to be something easy to pick up. Bacteria tended to come in size small.

That could work in their favor. There might be as few as two terrorists to deal with. Six Federal agents, two terrorists: surround and arrest. Even if one or both tried to suicide and blow up the package, six different angles of fire would surely take them down before either could do any real damage. This wasn't a situation where anyone had planned ahead with a suicide bomb strapped to their chest.

On the other hand, there could be several of the little buggers inside. Someone with a mind as suspicious as Don's might have decided to park their car in the lot down the road, just to avoid arousing the sorts of ideas that were even now flitting through Don's head.

Gibbs's cell phone buzzed at him, and the NCIS leader held up his hand: _hold._ He listened for a moment to the whispers coming over the call, frowning. More hand signals: a vehicle out back, capable of carting another six people back and forth from a terrorist operation.

The NCIS and FBI agents worked as well as a seasoned team, spreading out to either side of the warehouse front door, listening intently. Don could hear voices inside, identified the words as something Middle Eastern but the actual language was beyond his skill level.

Not so Ziva David. She listened, her own hands giving whatever information she could: at least four people inside. Still hunting for the correct box. Don wondered which language it was, decided that factoid could wait.

She kept them holding on the outside of the warehouse. Don had no doubt that she was letting the people inside do the hard work of locating the exact package, and he approved. It made it all the easier for the Federal agents outside, with the added bonus of identification. Just the thought of someone trying to tell a judge that they were innocent after being caught with a load of smallpox in their arms was laughable. Don himself texted the intel to Sinclair in back, having figured out that Gibbs tended to leave the technology end of things to others.

Then Ziva stiffened: the people inside had located the package. Even without the translation, Don would have been able to tell that something had happened simply by the increase in excitement from the voices within.

It was time. Gibbs held up three fingers in a silent countdown, knowing that the pair in back would come in as soon as they heard the shouting.

Three.

Two.

One—

Colby kicked in the door and dropped to the floor, handgun positioned in two fists. Gibbs was next, darting to the side to allow Don to enter, both shouting "Federal Agents," at the top of their lungs.

 _Not_ an easy take down. The place wasn't large, but it had a lot of crates to dodge behind and the terrorists did just that. Not one thought that putting up their arms in the classic surrender pose was a good idea and, since Don suspected that doing so would earn them a bullet in the back from their 'friends', he really couldn't blame them for trying to stay alive for another few minutes. A glorious martyrdom would have to wait for a more opportune moment.

Don himself dove behind a crate just inside the door in time to avoid the bullet that came buzzing in his direction. The small chunk of lead buried itself in the crate, and a piece of packing material puffed out through the hole that it had made.

Warfare: Don caught sight of Gibbs behind another crate. The NCIS team leader calmly stood up and put a shot toward the terrorist across the way. A sudden yelp demonstrated that Gibbs was a good shot. A body scuttled backward; hit, then, but not dead. Mixed blessing, Don thought.

Time to do his share. Don gave a quick bob upward to better locate the next suspect: three boxes over and one down. That one was already being stalked by Ziva from this end and, though Ziva couldn't see it, Sinclair was approaching from the back. No need to concentrate on that one; Don set his sights on the one further to the left who had a very real chance at nailing both Ziva and Sinclair.

Shoulder roll to the next crate, come up and look. Still on target; his man was oblivious to Don's approach, still looking to get a shot at either Sinclair or Ziva next time they raised a head. Not much time. Don chanced a quick scan to make sure that no one had him dead in their sites, and advanced. He put the hot metal of his handgun right behind the man's ear. "Freeze. Federal Agents."

The man stiffened in dismay. Don carefully handcuffed the man, making certain to loop the chain around something solid to prevent the man from escaping. One down and completely out of the fight. Don looked to move in on the next.

Another was already out; Gibbs, not satisfied with merely winging his man, had pursued and now was applying his own set of handcuffs, ignoring the howls that the suspect was emitting. The howls were in a mixture of English, French, and some Middle Eastern tongue but they all seemed to be telling Gibbs that it was inappropriate to handcuff a man with a bullet in his arm and that Gibbs's mother had done something highly unlikely with a camel.

The third took a shot at Ziva, only to find David Sinclair's handgun at this back. The Israeli officer made a moue, gave a thumbs up to Sinclair and slipped off in pursuit of another suspect.

DiNozzo had already located one, and it was the one with the package in his hands. "Put it down," DiNozzo invited, sighting down the barrel of his handgun.

The man raised it high above his head. "Shoot me!" he taunted. "I drop this box; everything breaks! You are a dead man!"

DiNozzo snickered. "You think I'm crazy? Buddy, that box has traveled half way around the world, gotten tossed up and down and thrown against the side of a ship a few times. If it hasn't broken by now, it sure as heck isn't going to." He sighted again. "Put it down, and save us both the hassle of me shooting you."

Don came up behind the man and neatly plucked the package out of his upraised arms. "Let me help you."

"You—!" the man whirled around.

"Thank you." DiNozzo took the opportunity that the man's back presented and grabbed one wrist, snapping a handcuff onto it. "Special Agent Eppes, shall we get that box to some place where we can take a closer look at it?"

"Sounds good to me." Don looked around. "Where's Colby?"

Colby had come up against the largest of the terrorists, a man easily taller than any of them there and weighing in at some three hundred pounds of muscle. Colby himself was a one man tank, but this man out-weighed him and had another six inches of reach.

Fortunately, Colby had speed and the training to use it. While the suspect expected a fist, Colby used a kick to the mid-section to double the man over. A feinted sweep turned into a set of knuckles to the head.

Not enough; the man simply soaked up the punishment and came back for more. Colby tried a wrestling hold and quickly gave that up as a bad job. His suspect broke Colby's lock as though it was made from a strand of over-cooked spaghetti.

"Keep it up, Colby," Don called out, marching his own suspect toward the door, keeping the package safe in his arms. "You're wearing him down."

"Right," Colby gasped, staggering. "I'm winning. Right."

"He's weaker on the right," Gibbs advised, eyeballing the contest. "No, his other right. Your left."

Colby, encouraged, socked the man in the eye. The terrorist staggered back, then recovered.

"Nice," DiNozzo said admiringly. "Only fifteen or twenty more like that, and you'll have him."

"I could use a little help," Colby growled. His next kick was a little lower to the groin, and only half of that was due to aim.

"I'm impressed," Ziva confided to Sinclair. "Does Granger do that all the time?"

"Usually it's a flying tackle," Sinclair told her, taking a better hold of their own suspect. "The guy rabbits, and it's Colby who runs 'im down."

"Speed _and_ strength. A wonderful combination." Ziva's eyes shone, but she was a well-trained agent and too good to let the scene in front of her distract her from the mission. "Did we get them all?"

"Four plus Colby's," DiNozzo said. "I didn't see anyone else; did you?"

"I only heard four people talking," Ziva admitted, glancing again at Colby and his match. The giant had just slammed Colby to the ground, and she winced. She was almost ready to go to his rescue when Colby redeemed himself by rolling to the side to avoid being flattened to paste by an over-sized shoe. "We have already arrested five."

" _Almost_ five," DiNozzo pointed out. "Granger is still working on Number Five. You can't actually call him _arrested._ He's still moving around pretty good."

"Still, Agent Granger will bring him down," Ziva predicted. "Ah, look, there it goes: the final hold."

Colby proved the Mossad officer correct. A last feint turned into a swift sweep that knocked the giant off of his feet. Colby summoned up one last burst of energy and leaped onto the man, throwing his arms around the man's neck in a choke hold. He hung up with all of his might.

In a normal match, played for paying customers, the fighter would tap out. There might be a few struggles to make it look good, make it look as though the referee didn't really have to stop the match.

This was not a normal match, and the giant was not giving up, and the closest thing to a referee was NCIS team leader Gibbs. "Somebody get some cuffs for this guy," he growled. "We've got a box of bacteria to secure."

"Don't think we've got any cuffs big enough, boss," DiNozzo replied.

"Then get some rope, DiNozzo." Gibbs glanced at the package nestled in Don's arms. "I haven't got all day."

"I've…almost… got 'im…out…cold…" Colby puffed. "Just…another…moment…"

 _Bang!_

A shot rang out. Colby yelped and fell back, his hold lost. The giant sprung to his feet and delivered a massive kick to his opponent, lifting Colby up into the air and sending him flying into a pile of wooden crates.

There was a sixth suspect, one perched on top of several more crates. He fired again, aiming for the package in Don's hands, shouting something that Ziva would later translate as, "get the box!"

As one, the NCIS and FBI agents turned and fired back. The terrorist staggered back, bullets striking him in the chest, and toppled off from the crates. All of the Federal agents rushed to secure the weapon, to make sure that the suspect was incapable of any more harm.

All but Don. The terrorist's aim had been true: he'd been aiming for the box of smallpox bacteria that Don was carrying, and a bullet had pierced the side of the box.

The contents _couldn't_ get out. If the bullet had shattered anything inside this box, then the contents could leak out and drift into the air. It wouldn't be just the terrorists and the Federal agents who had captured them who would be exposed, but everyone within a fifty mile radius along the path that any stray breeze chose to take. Smallpox had been eradicated from the earth decades ago, and this would cause the next epidemic to spring forth. The human race on Earth would be decimated.

The contents _couldn't_ get out. Don stuck his finger into the hole, plugging it like the little Dutch boy with the dyke.

Two people noticed his action. One was the giant. Freed from Colby's attack, he knew that the only way to accomplish his goal was to release the smallpox into the air, and only Don was in his way. With a roar, he barreled ahead.

Gibbs was the other person. He was not a small man, but neither was he the size of the giant bearing down on them.

Gibbs stepped into harm's way. The giant roared again, reaching out to sweep away the obstruction with one mighty blow.

Fist curled, Gibbs aimed for the chin. He put his back into it; he would have only one chance. He let his fist fly. He connected.

The giant's eyes rolled back up into his head, and he went down.

***

Don stood where he was, hunched over the box, finger plugging the hole.

"Don!" Sinclair started toward him.

"Get everyone out of here!" Don ordered tersely. "Gibbs, get the suspects out of here. David, see to Colby."

Colby staggered to his feet, fingers clutched to his arm and blood seeping out. "I'm okay, Don. The package—"

"Something's opened inside," Don informed them grimly, indicating the package. "I don't dare let go."

Gibbs took over. "DiNozzo, call it in. Get HazMat out here; tell 'em we've got a possible situation here. The rest of you: secure the prisoners outside. Get an ambulance here for Granger."

"I'm okay," Colby protested, teeth gritted.

Gibbs ignored him. "Tell the ambulance people to have bio-hazard suits on. We can't afford to let this contamination go anywhere."

"You get out of here, too, Gibbs," Don said, reading the other like a book. "Seal off the area, and don't let anyone into this warehouse."

"DiNozzo, I'm counting on you to keep people away from here," Gibbs continued as if Don hadn't spoken. "Go."

"Going, boss." DiNozzo herded everyone out, agents and suspects alike.

"Gibbs—"

"Let's get you sitting down." Gibbs gentled his voice. "You think you can walk?"

It was only then that Don realized that the package in his hands wasn't the only thing that the final terrorist had hit. Fire licked at his leg, and something wet leaked onto his skin: blood.

Nausea tickled his belly, and blackness edged around his vision, trying to close him down. Don swallowed hard; he _couldn't_ allow himself to pass out. If that happened, his finger would come out of the hole and the smallpox bacteria would leak out. One small action, and the world was doomed.

"I'm going to get you onto the floor, Eppes," Gibbs told him, taking Don by the arms. "You can't fall off of the floor."

 _Crap, there went his vision._ Don swallowed again, willing himself to stay conscious. When had he been hit? Obviously when the sixth terrorist had opened fire, but exactly _when?_ Don hadn't felt himself being hit, had been too concerned with keeping the package safe and out of the hands of the terrorist. Gibbs's grasp felt strong, and Don realized that falling wasn't an option, not with Gibbs at his back. All Don had to do was to keep his finger in the dam, preventing the smallpox from emerging. Gibbs would take care of the rest.

Then he was down on the dusty floor of the warehouse, his leg stuck awkwardly out in front of him. Gibbs lifted Don's head, stuffed something under it in lieu of a pillow, and Don realized that it was Gibbs's jacket. Something else covered his chest— _good thing. Starting to get cold_ —and since he didn't recognize the scent, Don guessed that it belonged to one of Gibbs's people. Probably DiNozzo, he thought. The Mossad officer's jacket wouldn't be this big, and Sinclair was undoubtedly hustling Colby toward medical care ASAP.

Something pressed on his leg, and he cried out in pain before he was able to clamp down on himself.

"Just a pressure dressing, Eppes." Gibbs kept his voice soothing. "We need to keep you from bleeding out."

"Thanks," Don managed to say. There was something else: "You need to get out of here. You could be contaminated if you stay. I'm not sure I can keep this under wraps."

"I've had the same shots as you, Eppes," Gibbs told him. "Same vaccinations. Right after nine eleven." He slid his own hand along Don's arm, making sure that Don's hand wasn't going anywhere. "We'll do this together."

* * *

Don awoke with a yelp. Someone— _several_ someones—were lifting him into the air and it _hurt!_

The package! Don reached for it, whole-heartedly panicking when he couldn't feel it. Hell, if he'd dropped it and let the powder laced with smallpox leak out…

"It's all right, Eppes. I've got it." It was Gibbs, and his voice was mere inches away from Don's ear. "It's not going anywhere that it's not supposed to."

There was something covering Don's hand, something to protect the world from the stuff that his finger had been stuck into. Don relaxed, only to yelp once more when something was jabbed into his shoulder.

"Just a smallpox vaccination, Agent Eppes," someone unfamiliar said. "A booster shot, since you were exposed. Everyone will be getting them within the hour."

"You just relax, hero." A different voice, and Don struggled to identify it, wishing that his eyes would work as they were supposed to. Fornell? What was he doing here? The cavalry must have arrived.

The stretcher felt uncomfortable under his back, but Don couldn't summon the energy to object. Someone put a plastic mask over his nose, and another _prick_ announced the arrival of intravenous fluids laced with morphine. Someone moaned somewhere in his vicinity, and Don wasn't about to say for sure that it wasn't him.

"The site's secure, Eppes," Fornell continued, clearly not certain if Don was still aware enough to comprehend what was being said. Fornell was correct to be uncertain, Don thought. _I'm_ not certain…either…

***

Not bad, but Special Agent Don Eppes could do without the present state of affairs. Quarantine had just been lifted, and he almost felt as though he could once again pass his physical and get back out onto the street where he belonged. Not that this hadn't been nice, he thought, steadfastly ignoring the twinge of pain that his leg scolded him with. He'd spent a lot of time on this sofa, loafing in front of the tube, protesting every time any of his team or Gibbs's waited on him. Personnel was limited in this housing; exposing additional people to the threat of smallpox wasn't sensible and so the healthy members of the FBI and NCIS teams performed as many of the duties as possible. After sleeping away the first couple of days, he'd grown to appreciate the difference between hospital and home, especially when someone thoughtful in the upper ranks of the FBI added a pretty good chef to the ranks and sent in high end meals for the FBI and NCIS teams who were stuck here.

After this many days, though, it was getting old. It was time to get back to real life, and that included Los Angeles. Gibbs had mentioned something about the Navy springing for an all-expenses paid trip back home tomorrow in a military jet reserved for the purpose, a little gratitude for his role in retrieving an errant NCIS agent, not to mention saving the world from disaster. Probably just a junior pilot who needed a few more hours of flight time, but still…

He heard voices outside the door, and prepared himself. All five of them—Gibbs, DiNozzo, Officer David, as well as his two—had bolted from the house once the medical officer had told them that infecting the world with smallpox was no longer a possibility. He couldn't blame them. The NCIS people had plants to water, and this would be the last chance that David and Colby would have to revisit D.C. for a long time. After this little episode, Don didn't intend to get within a hundred miles of this part of the country for as long as he could manage.

Don himself could have gone with them, but his leg was still bothering him. That would go away in another week, that NCIS medical examiner had told him. What did they call him? Ducky? The man was just like the rest of the NCIS bunch: loony on the outside but with a lot of smarts inside. Look at Goth-Girl; Don had been put off by her appearance but the chick showed some heavy duty skills. Gibbs was wise to value her contributions to his cases.

Don tried to adjust himself on the sofa, hissing when his leg told him he really _wasn't_ ready to go back to work. Back to his apartment in L.A.: yes. He might even be allowed to ride a desk next week if he behaved himself, but right now he was having difficulty riding a sofa. He sighed. Whoever was coming in the front door had better not be from the underbelly of life, because not only was Special Agent Don Eppes not armed, but getting his piece from the back bedroom was _so_ not happening. The only thing he had to defend himself was the now vanished threat of plague.

"Eppes!" someone called out, and Don relaxed. It was the Israeli agent, Ziva. "We've brought guests."

Good. Don was getting bored, and the tube had long since given up any pretense of entertainment. "In here," he called, as if the woman and the people she was with hadn't stayed in this place along with him. There weren't all that many rooms.

It sounded as though she was with several other people.

"C'mon, McGee. How much weight did you put on in the hospital?"

"Tony—"

"Anthony, Timothy is still recovering from his injuries. I suspect that he is mildly underweight at the moment."

"Over there." Gibbs was one of the people supporting his agent, DiNozzo the other. Gibbs indicated one of the recliners. "Get a move on, DiNozzo."

The recliner would be a good thing, Don realized. McGee—Don had just seen him the once, in the basement of the mansion—was only making a pretense of walking, his arms over the shoulders of his fellow agents. Gibbs and DiNozzo had a choice: they could lower the man onto the recliner gently, or they could let him flop on the floor. Going anywhere under his own power was clearly beyond Special Agent McGee's abilities. The man's head was already listing to one side.

"Get him down." Gibbs's voice took on that gentle but demanding tone that Don recognized from his own brush with death. The two NCIS agents swiftly maneuvered their fellow agent onto the recliner, pushing the seat down until McGee's legs were up and color starting to seep back into his face.

"Ducky, McGee's going to be all right, right?" Goth-girl—Abby, Don had to remember her name—insisted. "Ducky?"

"Yes, Abigail, he will, but only if we let him rest," Dr. Mallard told her querulously. "Some water, if you don't mind," he added, as McGee broke into a spate of coughing.

"That's…that's better," McGee gasped to Abby, holding the cup to his lips. "Thanks."

"Just a touch of pneumonia," the doctor informed the crowd, unsuccessfully hiding the hint of worry in his eyes.

Don's own brother was next. Don allowed Abby to help prop him up on the sofa so that he could see the spectacle.

David and Ziva had equally as much trouble hefting the mathematician in through the door. There was a lot less of the man to work with, but there was a lot more verbiage.

"Look, I really need that laptop back." Charlie's mouth was working non-stop. "I didn't have the opportunity while we were at the mansion, but I could have done a lot in the hospital if only you'd let me have it. Do you realize how bored I was? The code wasn't the only thing they gave us. Dr. Levenger had put the names and addresses of at least forty of the foreign agents that she'd contacted for our services—" he broke off. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh?" There was a note in Charlie's voice that Don didn't like. It wasn't one that he heard often, and it didn't sound good.

"Get him down," Dr. Mallard instructed the FBI agents. "There, on the sofa. That's right, legs elevated. Just a bit too long on his feet, I'd say. For both of them," he added, pretending to glare. Fingers slipped to Charlie's wrist, checking the rhythm and harrumphing. "Neither Timothy nor Dr. Eppes has any business being out of the hospital. Leaving too soon," he grumbled. "In my day—"

"Ducky," Gibbs warned, but it wasn't to stop the medical examiner's story. There was a newcomer at the door. Gibbs didn't bother a smile for this one. "Tobias."

"Jethro," Special Agent Tobias Fornell greeted him, walking in without an invitation. The man looked exactly the same as when Don had seen him last, trench coat flapping around his legs, hands stuffed in his pockets. _Almost_ the same; now he dangled a black laptop case from a strap over his shoulder, and Don wondered how Fornell had gotten hold of it. He'd thought that the NCIS folks were doing the velcro thing to the one piece of equipment that had really made the difference. "Professor Eppes. McGee. Good to see the pair of you out of the hospital."

Two sets of eyes, both set in extraordinarily pale faces, followed the little black case like addicts in search of a fix.

All agents present noted the geek-fixation, and none were best pleased.

"Fornell, my brother has _literally_ just gotten out of the hospital—"

"McGee will not be solving your case for you—"

"Hey, hey! Hold on a second." Fornell threw up his hands in protest, setting the case down on the table. "Look, I waited until they were out—"

"Only because we wouldn't let you in," DiNozzo snarled.

"Why do you think we posted guards at the door?" Sinclair added. "The case was over. The danger was past."

"Just because _you_ couldn't get anything more from the hard drive doesn't mean that you can come over here to force Agent McGee and Charlie to help," Don put in.

"I could kill him," Ziva announced to the world at large. "No one would ever know. My methods would be untraceable."

" _I_ could find out how you did it."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not, Abby."

"Maybe I wouldn't bother," Abby said, glaring at Fornell.

"Look, guys, I've a job to do, just like the rest of you," Fornell said, trying for mollification. "We're getting precious little good intelligence from this little slice of life. There's more data on this laptop, and our best hasn't been good enough."

"Levenger isn't talking?" Don was getting interested despite his concern over his brother.

"Levenger is dropping hints that she can finger half the spooks in D.C.," Fornell confirmed. "She's looking at a charge of treason, and is desperate to avoid the chair. She's trying to cut a deal. It was a pretty clever set up," he admitted. "She planned to kidnap Professor Eppes here as well as Professor Penfield and force them to work for her, deciphering codes and selling them to whoever could pay. This was not a one shot deal. She expected to build up her business just like it was the corner drug store, then sell out to the highest bidder after she'd earned enough money to keep her living in style in an island somewhere."

"It almost worked," Sinclair said. "If it hadn't been for their mistake in taking Agent McGee instead of Penfield, you might not be here, Charlie."

"It did," Gibbs agreed. "She almost got away with it. Even her people mistaking McGee for Penfield didn't really slow her down."

"Speaking of whom, where is he?" Charlie asked. "Marshall Penfield isn't one to leave a problem unsolved. Was he one of the people you asked to try to open up this laptop? Password recovery isn't one of his strongest suits. He's much better with theoreticals."

DiNozzo grinned. "I happened to mention to him that we'd just been released from quarantine." He shrugged. "Funny. He didn't seem eager to stay after that. Muttered something about being needed back for his classes."

"Yes, well, we _didn't_ need him," Fornell said. "We've got nets out for the five people who put in bids for the code you were working on, Professor Eppes, but from the hints that Levenger is dropping we think there may be as many as thirty more. We're lucky this message didn't get out to the general intelligence community. Someone would have grabbed that package and stashed it where we couldn't find it. We could have started a world-wide epidemic."

"Not lucky," Charlie disagreed. "We owe our lives to Agent McGee. If he hadn't gotten me out of there—"

"It was your standing up to the kidnappers that kept me alive, Charlie." McGee was thrilled to be on a first name basis with one of the world's greats.

"Gibbs was the one tracking you down, Charlie," Don pointed out.

"So who stuck his finger into the package?" Gibbs asked.

"All right, all right!" Fornell threw up his hands. "I'll put you _all_ in for medals. Satisfied?"

"You can't put me in," Charlie pointed out. "I'm not a Federal agent." He looked around. There was someone missing from the group. "Where's Colby? Didn't you tell me that he got shot, too?"

"Right here, Charlie." Colby appeared at the door to the kitchen, one arm still in a sling. He draped his good arm over Ziva's shoulders in a more than companionable fashion. "Just winged me. More embarrassing than anything else." He turned to the Israeli officer. "You ready?"

"I am," she assured him.

DiNozzo looked puzzled. "Ready? Ready for what?"

Colby beamed. "Ziva's gonna show me around town. Hey, it's our last night here," he protested, "and I haven't had a chance to see the sights; been stuck in quarantine. Can't a guy play tourist every now and again?" He winked. "See you guys later." He headed out through the door, Ziva at his side.

DiNozzo shook his head and sighed. "He's in for it. Ziva's knowledge of the tourist sites in on a par with her knowledge of American slang."

Don grinned. "DiNozzo?"

"Yes, boss? I mean, Special Agent Eppes?"

Don grinned again. "Colby spent a year in D.C. right after Quantico. He's seen all the D.C. sites that he wants to. I think he's a little more interested in the Israeli ones."

DiNozzo stared after the pair. "Ziva? And Granger?"

"Stranger things have happened, DiNozzo," Gibbs reproved him.

"Yeah, but Ziva?" DiNozzo shook his head once more. "Hey, McGee. Uh, McGee?"

The recliner where they'd dropped the NCIS geek was empty. Not only that, but the sofa that had once held a recuperating mathematician was also empty.

 _Beep._

The laptop that Fornell had brought was no longer in its case. It was out and sitting on a table, Charlie and McGee huddled over it, Abby Sciutto standing behind them, all three drinking in the rays from the screen.

"This ought to be a really easy password to crack. Levenger had no training in ciphers."

"That's assuming that she was the one to put in the password, Professor."

"I keep telling you: call me Charlie. Can you get this thing to perform some Rosewood Assymptotes?"

"Sure, but it will take forever. This CPU is pretty slow. How about applying the Dickenson Diversion?"

"Disproved almost a year ago. Let's just hammer it out."

Abby looked up at the room, her eyes shining. "Do you even realize how way cool this is? This is like a Beethoven Symphony for cipher forensics!"

Fornell removed his trench coat and tossed it over McGee's recliner. He dropped his backside on the abandoned sofa and grinned. "Mission accomplished. I should have the rest of the intel on that computer pretty soon." He glanced at his watch. "Any bets on how long it will take?"

 

The End.


End file.
